The Golden Horn
by Anotherjaneway
Summary: Captain Stanley comes face to face with a real hero and a brush fire threatens the lives and vehicles of Station 51


This is a text version of the original still airing imaged, music soundtracked story.

Emergency Theater Live, Episode Six

6. The Golden Horn Season One- Episode Six Short summary-  
Captain Stanley comes face to face with a real hero and a brush fire threatens the lives and vehicles of Station 51.

****WARNING**** The long summary to come is very story spoiling and will take away plot surprises if you read it now before reading the longer story below it.

Decide now if you want to read this episode's detailed summary before doing so.

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Long Summary-  
A delivery man collapses at the station due to heat stroke and is treated as a still alarm. Captain Stanley learns of Chief McConnikee's death from a building collapse and the gang takes the news hard. The gang responds to a car crash in a regional park during a rainless lightning storm. They treat a woman and her daughter for strange injuries. A brush fire's ignited around them and causes Cap to order an immediate emergency evacuation using the station vehicles. The gang escapes,  
but Engine 51 is badly damaged. Cap's found to be missing soon after safety is reached. Blood is found at the mouth of an old mine hole along with Cap's helmet and far below,  
Hank hallucinates about McConnikee while bleeding badly as he hangs, trapped over the mouth of an underground whirlpool. Gage and Roy go down after him. Before a belt can be secured, Johnny and Cap fall and are swept away into an underwater quarry.  
An apparition of McConnikee seems to aid in their rescue.  
Hank visits McConnikee's wife to pay his respects for missing the chief's funeral and receives the old hat he once burned behind McConnikee's back as a joke. Hanks repairs the hat and leaves it at McConnikee's gravesite in tribute to his hero.

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The Story Unfolds...

Season One, Episode Six..

The Golden Horn

Debut Launch: 15 March 2003.

-------------------

. Emergency Theater Live- New episodes of the series written by paramedics, firefighters and fans of the series.

.com/group/emergencytheaterlive **Theater Writer Site

*Cut and paste any link that is highlight broken into your browser address bar and the link will function.

*  
From : Jeff Seltun Subject : Morning Misery Date : : Sat Mar 22, 2003 10:02 pm

Johnny Gage jolted in bed with a groan as the wakeup tones shattered his sleep, filling the bunkroom with its frequency tones.  
"L.A. testing with stations 127, 36, 110, 8 and 51."

Hank Stanley rolled out from under his sheets to the bedside radio mounted near his head. "L.A., Station 51. You're clear, KMG 365." he mumbled and sniffed and coughed as he hung the mike back up on its spigot. "Gage, Kelly tells me it's your turn to cook breakfast this morning."

"Aw, Cap. We just got back." Gage said. "Besides,  
Chet never honors his bets anyway, so why should I? I'm gonna just ...catch a few winks so I....I..." and his voice trailed off as sleepiness made him drift again from where he slumped in tangled sheets on his stomach.

A ballistic pillow nailed Gage on the back of the head.

"Ow!" and Johnny shot up onto his butt glaring about him for the one whose bed was now pillowless.  
"Whoever threw that's dead meat.." he growled.

" Get up! A deal's a deal." Chet groused. "That sounded like a definite Cap order to me." he countered. Then he peeped. "Right, Cap?"

Hank just glared at Kelly and pointed. "Move it, Kelly.  
You may not be putting the chow on, but the coffee pot's calling out your name big time. I wanna smell coffee brewing in fifteen seconds or the hose tower's gonna be your second home for a week. 15, 14,...10"  
he accelerated, "9,.. 8 !!..."

Chet muffled any further retort wisely and scrambled into boots and was gone before his sheets settled.

From where he lay face down on his bed, Roy chuckled. "G*d, I love waking up in the morning here.  
Kinda puts the world in perspective...."

"Oh, would you just shut up?" Johnny snapped, sitting up with his legs dangling over the bed, not yet having the mental faculty to succeed in getting into his pullover boots and trousers.

Hank's stenorous voice boomed out. "As for you, Gage, there's a mop just aching for latrine duty if I don't see you making tracks to the stove in five.."

The effect was miraculous. Johnny went from grumpy sleeper to rabbit quick in a pico.

Roy blinked in surprise when he only saw the door swing following his partner's sudden departure. He quirked a grin.  
"Cap, some day you outta teach me that trick of yours that inspires such gut fearing reaction in the guys. Maybe then I can use it on Johnny whenever he gets outta line about some crazy scheme of his."

"Sorry, that's a trade secret.."

"Too bad." Roy studied his watch closely and nodded when the aroma of fresh coffee wafted into the bunkroom.  
"That's thirteen seconds, Cap. A record. Looks like Chet won't have hose tower duty today."

"Fine. Marco, that'll be your morning assignment."

"Hey! That's not fair.. I didn't do anything.." Lopez protested.

"Precisely my point, Lopez. It's a Cap's duty to keep his men from getting too bored between runs, by handing out active and fulfilling job duties." Hank said with a smile rubbing pleased palms together.

"I'm thrilled.." Marco said sarcastically, barely a whisper, disguising his retort as a cough.

"Or,..would you rather a little latrine time instead so you can stay out of the fierce summer sun..?"

Marco's face flopped open in instant fear. "The tower's perfect,  
Cap. I could use a workout. At that last fire of ours,  
I only ran up fifty flights of steps. What's a few more?"

"Good man. DeSoto, it's up to you and Stoker to arm wrestle duke it out to decide who gets the chrome or the can. I'm done making decisions until after lunch." And Cap strolled out of the bunk room.

Stoker and Roy exchanged brief looks of surprise. Then they began eyeing each other up. Stoker cracked his knuckles with a feral grin.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Roy wandered into the kitchen cradling his arm and shaking it out to work the kinks out of it.

"What's wrong with you?" Johnny asked Roy, sliding a pan full of scrambled eggs onto pot holders in front of the six table settings he had laid out.

"Nothing.."

Mike Stoker entered the kitchen and quietly took his place at the kitchen table and sat with a significant cough, pleased as punch.

Gage looked from Roy's self conscious face to Mike's smug one but wasn't in the least clued in.

Mike piped up. "He lost."

"Lost what?" Johnny asked.

"Never mind.." DeSoto said defensively.

Cap, sitting and biting into a cinnamon roll, grinned as all get out.

Chet finally put two and two together. "Don't be dense,  
Gage. Stoker was just the better man in a wrestle, that's all." he smirked. "Well, well, well... Looks like the guy who never pulls toilet duty's finally been had." he teased.

"You're kidding.." Johnny said, forgetting that he was pouring Roy's coffee. He caught himself before the spill got over the table's edge dangerously,  
and into his partner's lap.

Roy's mute look said it all as he watched Johnny hastily intercept the scalding coffee with an agile towel.

Gage began to laugh to beat the band as he sat also to wolf down breakfast. "How could ya lose, Roy? You must be a third bigger than Stoker is."

"Who's been doing more CPR lately?" Roy bemoaned.

Johnny gave a short nod, quite frank. "Stoker."  
and he laughed uproariously.

Roy glared at him with his usual unblinking frown.

Gage moused down under the scrutiny immediately.

Sounds of aggressive eating filled the air with slurps and silverware chinks and china dings until breakfast was a thing of history. Then Cap leaned back and said.  
"First thing after all the chores are done.." and he tossed a slate full of unorganized run logs and fire calls with an echoing bang, onto the table.

The packet clipped into place was nearly half an inch thick.

All the gang's faces slacked open.

"Uh, what's this, Cap?" Johnny finally asked.

"What's it look like? They're our run sheets from last month. A new procedure's been drafted. Each company shift's now responsible for tidying up the log book, and making neat copies of each incident, in triplicate, for the final send to headquarters."

Dead silence met Hank's ears.

Then Kelly cleared his throat. "Uh, Cap. There must be some kinda mistake here. You see, we're firemen, not secretaries. Besides, doing all those would take us all hours, if not days to do. I'll just bet not one of us types better than twenty words a minute."

"Tough." came Cap's easy reply. "I can't help it if that's a secondary skill you men have chosen not to develop.  
It's a requirement in the captaincy. Work it out. You have three days to get this mess into some semblance of order."

"But isn't that the Cap's duty to record into the official log book?"

"Not anymore. For once, McConike's finally laid the groundwork for something I actually agree on.. It's about time the paperwork duties are shared as equally as the chores around here.."

No one voiced the thought every man was thinking, about Cap never getting latrine or mop duty.

Johnny slumped, pushing away his half empty plate with a sigh and he buried his face into a hand as he regarded the fat slate before him.

Cap asked. "What's the matter, Johnny? Don't like your own cooking?"

"All the sudden, I'm not very hungry."

"Eat. Then type. And that's an order..." Hank said.  
"I got the dishes." he commented, getting up and clearing all the plates into a stack, one by one, except the meal in front of Johnny. "Then I'll be right with ya all, straightening out that g*d awful mess there." he said pointing to the pile of bundled run sheets. "I planned ahead and got five typewriters ordered from HQ."

The doorbell rang.

Cap lifted his head. "And that's most likely the courier delivering them right now. Stoker, go answer that."

Mike moved.

"Chop, chop the rest of you. The faster we clear the table, the faster we can get started.." Cap said.

------------------------------------------------

Mike Stoker opened the rear door from the yard and hastily got out of the way as a handtruck, laden with five heavy boxes, barreled into the station. "Oops,  
sorry, young fella. Sorry to be hurrying, but I got ten deliveries to make by noon." the UPS man said.

He wheeled the station's new typewriters into the garage and unloaded them against the wall. Then he leaned on the door frame, dragged out a hanky and wiped his red face. "Man, what a scorcher today.  
Whooweee.." he gasped, enjoying the cool air of the bay. Then he swallowed. "Say, is there any chance I can bum a glass of water off ya? I drank a little too much soda today and I'm parched."

"Let me go get you one.." Mike offered. "Hang on a minute." Then he took the man's slate pad, "I'll go take this to Cap to sign."

"Perfect. I'll wait here." the older man sighed.

"Have a seat.." Stoker offered, indicating a bench behind him.

"Don't mind if I do.."

Stoker went into the kitchen.

He returned with a tall glass of ice water just in time to see the delivery man sagging down the wall. "Hey, DeSoto, Gage!! On the double!"

He caught the flushed man as he fainted and lowered him to the floor just as a tremendous seizure gripped him.

Photo : Johnny lying in bed.

Photo : The gang surrounding the table eating.

Photo: Johnny, Roy and Chet in Cap's office with armloads of paperwork.

*  
From : "Roxy Dee" Subject : [EmergencyTheaterLive] Whirlwind Help~~ Date : Sat, 29 Mar 2003 01:52:50 +0000 Roy and John looked up from where they were drying dishes with Cap.

"Huh?" Johnny gasped.

Everyone in the kitchen ran for the garage in haste. Gage took one look at the convulsing man and the hard time Mike was having keeping his airway open and he said said. "Cap! We gotta move... Marco! Get the gear.."

Johnny and Roy fell onto their knees by Stoker as they both reached for the fallen man. "Stoker?" Roy asked while he felt the man's pulse. He only briefly looked at Mike for what he knew. "What happened here? Let's get him on his side. Easy.."

The UPS delivery man's eyes were rolled up into his head and his hitched breathing sounded almost painful as he shook.

"He said he was thirsty and very warm. When I got back with his water, I found him passing out just as you see him now. He's been seizing only for half a minute." Mike replied. Stoker kicked a typewriter box out of the way that was a little too near the man's head.

Roy looked at Marco, who had first grabbed the resuscitator from the squad's side compartment.

Stoker turned on a high flow of 02 through the demand valve's mask and began to use it to create some fuller breaths for the man in order to turn away his mild cyanotic color.

John nodded after his primary assessment. "His airway's fine now. Roy, his carotids are much stronger than his radial pulses and he's more than just a little warm. This flush looks like sunburn."

"Heat stroke?" Roy guessed as he loosened the man's clothing and belt for more inspiration room. He started to listen to how the man was breathing with a stethoscope.

"That'd be my guess." John said frankly. "Mike, see if you can cushion his head, but don't interfere with or restrain him in any way."

"Right."

"And let's get him stripped down."

Chet tossed Stoker a folded burn pack for him to use for a pillow and then he began opening a shock blanket immediately after. Kelly slid the defibrillator and biophone with a foot nearer to Roy and Johnny, while he unfolded the sheet as fast as he could.

Cap crouched only briefly over the man to help Marco open the shaking man's shirt where he lay propped on his side, then he rose. "Marco,  
after you're through patching him in, grab some ice from the yard's soda cooler and hoof it back here with a load, would ya?"

Johnny nodded vigorously in agreement from where he was taking a hasty BP on his patient, letting Roy keep the stethoscope, getting a systolic reading by guiding touch alone.

"You got it.." Lopez said. He ran through the back door. On a thought, he opened the idling UPS truck's cab and switched off the running ignition and threw on the truck's emergency brake. As he hurried he heard another order from Cap float out of the shed.

"And get out a portable smoke fan, we'll use it to start cooling him down. Also punch up both garage doors, the cross wind might help."

Marco snatched open the chest cooler that was humming outside against the back of the station nearest the hose tower and soccer kick guided a drying mop bucket close until it was handy to use as a way to transport the ice they so desperately needed for their stricken visitor.

---------------------------------

Meanwhile, inside, Johnny drew out the defib paddles and took a quick reading while Roy checked and rechecked the leads connecting from the biophone to the EKG monitor.  
"He's showing sinus tach, Roy. With considerable physical artifact."  
The finding made Johnny grip the man's carotid again for quality. "Still viable though." He tossed the paddles aside back into the open case. He swept appraising eyes over their victim, who was now only in briefs.

Only then did Cap move over to the radio station to heft up the acknowledgement microphone. "L.A., this is Station 51.  
We have a still alarm at our location. Respond an immediate ambulance, Code R."

##10-4, 51. Ambulance is responding. Driver reports his ETA as four minutes. Your time out, 8 : 06.##

"Station 51, KMG 365, 10-4." and he sighed, returning to hover back over the working team of paramedics and firemen.

The sinus tach came on the monitor in front of Cap,  
but in moments, it seemed, the man's heartbeat grew more coarse and wide peaked into a more chaotic tach.

Roy snaked a hand to the man's neck pulse and kept it there while he phoned out. "Rampart, this is Squad 51. How do you read?"

Dixie McCall replied when she heard the response buzzer sound above her head. Seconds later, she was pressing the call out toggle on the base station intercom.## Unit calling in, please repeat.## and she flipped on the wall recorder.

"Rampart, this is rescue 5-1."

##Go ahead, 51. ## Dixie said getting set a chart note pad and pencil. She tapped on the window glass to get Dr. Morton's attention about the run. The young intern returned his reading chart to the holder and entered the room to listen to Roy's report as Dixie documented it in writing.

"Rampart, we have a male, aged approximately 60-62 years of age. He is currently down with a witnessed seizure.  
Duration: Two and a half minutes. Rampart, he also appears grossly febrile and not at all diaphoretic. Cooling measures are in progress as well as assisted ventilations on 100 % O2."  
DeSoto said to the hospital staffers as he watched his partner show Marco and Chet where to place the chilling ice. Piles soon appeared around the twitching man's axilla area, and thickly around his head and neck, ankles, groin and wrists inside the shock sheet the others had wrapped around him.

Roy cupped the phone's receiver onto his shoulder, muffling it. "Stoker, keep tabs on his carotid for me, will ya?  
I'm letting go. Ignore the monitor even though it's showing a beat. Trust only what you feel. He may go sour on us real fast."  
Stoker nodded, taking over his hold with a grip of his own.

Roy was now free to write down the information he had gathered from his assessment.

Dixie asked. ##51, what are the patient's vitals?##

Gage was already biting open an IV of normal saline and he smacked a box of intravenous tubing against Chet's knee for him to open as well, in anticipation of its use. He barely waited for a pause in Roy's account when he added. "Roy, pulse is, 134 and weak. Respirations are 30 and shallow. Pupils are slightly dialated and sluggish. BP is.  
104 by palpation. Still working on the temp."

Roy parroted the vitals signs as he heard them,  
scratching his nose while he watched Stoker maintain good color on their patient. "30? And shallow?" he doubled checked.

"Yeah.." Johnny confirmed.  
Roy nearly dropped the phone when the man's belly began to heave.. "Mike.. Watch it..! Watch it.  
He's starting to vomit.."  
Stoker pulled away the mask and supported the man's head on his arm while some emesis gushed from his lips. Gage tossed him a syringe bulb from the 02 apparatus case and some gauze 4 X 4's.

"Here! See if you can clear him first with this before anyone goes running to get the suction. This way's faster."

Cap bent to help Stoker hold the man's face firm despite each violent convulsion, while Mike worked to keep him from aspirating anything into his lungs.

Chet asked. "Are we cooling him too fast..?"

"No. He's not shivering yet." Johnny said tartly. "You and Marco, just keep doing what you're doing." he jogged his head animatedly at Chet and Lopez while they hand shovelled ice into the yellow bundle of plastic sheeting cocooning the man.

Roy reported the event once he was convinced they were on top of it. He also told Rampart about the feed he had set up and about relaying his cardiac telemetry through to them on Lead Two.

##10-4, 51.## Morton replied.##Does your victim have a gag reflex?## considering his options on reducing the man's most serious complication.

Roy watched the man as he heaved a bit abdominally in response to Mike's evacuation attempts with the oral bulb whenever he reached in to sweep it over the man's tongue. "That's affirmative. But it doesn't look like he's bringing up much beyond the initial amount. It appears to be all liquid."

Mike spoke up. "Roy, he did tell me that he drank too much pop."

"Soda?" Roy asked.

Stoker nodded as he moved faster to clear the man's mouth.

"I'll just bet his blood glucose's screwed up, too, on top of his being drier than all get out." Gage mumbled. "Marco check those clothes over there for any sign of medical ID."

"Rampart, our witness mentions that our victim spoke about consuming a lot of soft drinks prior to collapse."

##10-4#  
Mike Morton sighed and leaned onto the counter meeting Dixie's eyes.##Do what it takes to regain good air exchange, 51. His pulse is accelerating.## he affirmed by looking at the monitor.

Cap got a pulse count. "It's up. Rate's 160 now." he told Roy to confirm what Morton had found.

Stoker finally got nothing but air into his bulb.  
"I got him. I got him.." And he quickly sent some vents in,  
timed with the man's own. The fluttering pulse he felt under his fingertips began to ease subtly and slowly at first, but soon thereafter, by more than twenty beats a minute.

Morton spoke over the phone.##Good turn around. Did he aspirate, 51?##

DeSoto shook his head as he listened to the man's breath sounds around the ice piled there, with his stethoscope.

"That's negative, Rampart." Roy sighed in relief.

Cap finished wiping the man's face clear with the dish towel that he remembered he had jammed into his pants pocket, in between Mike's 02 delivered vents. "Looks like we got lucky."

Morton went on. ##All right, enough's enough. Let's get a handle on those uncontrolled convulsions. Start an IV, 51. A 500 cc bolus IV of Normal Saline and run it wide open. Administer 10 mg Diazepam IV Push. Monitor him carefully for dysrhythmias, 51, as it goes in. Titrate the diazepam only to seizure resolution level. He's too irritable cardiac wise for any more than that.##

"An IV, Normal Saline, wide open. Diazepam IVP until seizure is counteracted. 10-4."

"Man, I can't get a vein.. Chet.. kneel on his hand, will you?  
Hold this arm still as you can.." John grunted, holding his needle well away from Kelly and the convulsing man until he had good room to work. "Pump up that BP cuff again, too, while you're at it.."

Chet did as he was told and everyone held their breaths while the blood pressure valve quietly snicked tight. It barely raised a shocky vein. But it was enough.

Seconds later...."I got it.." Johnny grinned, when he saw his catheter's flashback. Gage snatched for the flowing end of the hanging IV that Kelly had hung from the squad's side mirror. He quickly connected the two together while he taped up the rest of the IV and swabbed down its medication's port for Roy to use.

Roy slowly injected the global sedative until the man went limp and relaxed into a post seizure turpor. His patient's color paled and the sinus tach widened, turning a bit closer, into something else. Roy pulled the med needle out of the IV line. "That did it.." But he didn't smile. The EKG began to show anomalies.

"Stoker. How's he doing?" Johnny asked.

"Still got a carotid. It's easier to ventilate him now."

"It should be.." Gage coughed. "We just knocked out most of his involuntary muscle abililty." he said taking another BP, this time with the stethoscope.

Roy did not look away from the monitor.

Marco looked up from his search of the man's belongings.  
"There's no sign of an ID, medical or otherwise. But I know his name's Marty Anders."  
At everyone's puzzled frowning, he said. "Oh, I read it from a name tag he had pinned to his jacket in the delivery truck. I shut off its engine when I went out to get the ice."

Gage held up his thermometer he had taken R. "It's a hundred fo--... Hold it..." he froze, studying a suddenly off rhythm on the EKG screen. "He's in V-Tach!.......Mike?"

"I can't feel a pulse anymore."

At the same time, the radio burst into life. ## 51, defibrillate.  
400 watt seconds.## Morton ordered.

"10-4, starting CPR." Roy confirmed. "Marco.." he indicated while the others rolled the man onto his back, whose color had now washed into a bluish ghost of its prior shade.

"Right." Lopez nodded and started vigorous chest compressions.

Gage gelled the paddles and waited for the charger to build.  
"One. Two. Three... Four hundred watt seconds.. Clear!"

Everyone lifted their hands off the man.

Johnny delivered his first shock.

The heart monitor indicator leaped but didn't convert, instead it fell into a course V-fib.

"No conversion.." he announced. "Recharging.." he said, hitting the power up switch once more.

Again, he defibrillated. To no avail.

"Nothing..." Roy grunted.

Marco and Stoker instantly continued their CPR.

Roy picked up the phone. "Rampart, we've no recapture..Request permission to insert an esophageal airway.." he said, his voice tight with stress.

##Go ahead, 51. Then administer 1 mg 1/10,000 epinephrine IV and then defibrillate again.##

Cap's head lifted when he heard the arriving ambulance approach on the boulevard through the open garage doors. He saw it pull into the station's driveway. He jogged over to them to show them where their victim was.

Roy and Johnny worked for a very long two minutes securing the airway and switching to an oxygen supported ambu bag.

The third countershock failed as well.

The two ambulance attendants took over Lopez's compressions and Stoker's ventilations.

Roy said, "Still nothing, doc.."

Morton bit his lip. "Just what the h*ll's going on here? This is just an environmental injury...isn't it?" he mumbled.

Dixie, overhearing, shrugged. "Your guess is as good as mine."

Morton slammed the response button down hard with a palm.  
## 51, start a Lidocaine drip of 1.5 mg's and follow up with one amp sodium bicarb. Time we equalize his blood's acidity and give his system a reason to start working again. ##

"10-4. One amp bicarb and a 1.5 mg Lidocaine drip." Roy called aloud for Johnny's benefit.

The dark haired medic already had out the right things,  
guessing ahead of time, their need, and he handed Roy the large bicarb syringe after squirting some of it out to alleviate its trapped air.

##Then administer another milligram of epinephrine. IV Push. Continue CPR for two minutes then defibrillate once more.##

"An additional mg 1/10,000 epinephrine IV and counter shock in two. 10-4, Rampart.." Roy repeated.

Johnny waited for Roy to administer the Lidocaine before he followed suit with his cap popped epinephrine. "Let's just hope the lidocaine does the trick. I really don't think he'll handle any procainamide well."

"Let's hope so.." DeSoto grunted as he completed his infusions.

CPR continued while they waited for the medication to start working.

Then, after the fourth try using the defib paddles, a tentative cardiac rhythm bloomed on the monitor and soon Johnny felt a carotid weakly beating at the man's neck. "We got him back." he announced.

Roy lifted the phone. "Rampart, we're showing a sinus rate of about 52 and we've regained a carotid pulse."

Johnny fed him a new set of vitals after snatching the stethoscope from around Roy's neck. "BP's 102/58. Respirations are 14." He watched the ambulance attendant switch the ambu attachment for the station's second portable 02 tank that Stoker had wheeled up from the squad's backup.

Roy relayed the news.

## I see it. Continue monitoring vitals and watch for signs of overcooling. Continue the 02 and transport as soon as possible. Call me back if his pulse rate doesn't climb back up to normal in transit.##

A few minutes later, Johnny and Roy had the man geared up for the gurney and together they loaded the delivery man into the awaiting ambulance.  
Johnny went with the patient with the gear while Roy remained behind to follow in the squad. He got in the driver's seat and leaned out the window. "This is irony for you.. How many times have I ever went 10-8 to Rampart on a call out of the stationhouse?"

"Twice, I think.." Chet said literally. "Once for that girl's father with his sudden MI and then the other time when that crazy family pulled up with the burning trailer with the trapped kid in the driveway."

"Oh, yeah. Forgot about those two." DeSoto admitted.

Cap sighed, backing away so Roy could pull out.  
"Let me know how he does. If he wakes up,  
tell him I'm calling his boss to come pick up the delivery truck."

"That's if he wakes up while I'm with him.."  
Roy grinned. "He's pretty out of it with his meds and overall condition there, Cap."

"Yeah, I know. But he just strikes me as the type who'll fuss over his vehicle, know what I mean?"

"Yeah." And Roy was gone.

Chet, Marco and Stoker looked at the papers and ice and water and plastic sheeting strewning the bay. "Man,.. looks like a tornado struck in here." Kelly quipped.

"It did. A force of six. We're always like that on a medical call so don't act like such an amazed twit . Go close both main doors and then you guys clean up over there. I'll go move the typewriter boxes into the kitchen." Cap said.

Soon, only a freshly mopped spot marked the place where a man had nearly died fifteen minutes before.

=====================================onlinebook edit mark

----------------------------------

Photo : Roy with man on 02.

Photo: Morton and dix.

Photo: Johnny getting the gear out.

Photo: Roy in a close up sitting in the squad.

*  
Date: Sun, 30 Mar 2003 05:10:46 +0100 (BST) From: "Katherine Bird" .uk Subject: One of the Line... It was about forty minutes later.

Johnny and Roy returned to base,  
whistling cheerfully. They had been buoyed by the good news that Marty, the delivery man,  
had suffered no long term effects from his heatstroke incident and Gage in particular, was practically bouncing on his heels as he and Roy made their way hungrily into the kitchen on a quest for food and coffee.

What the two paramedics didn't expect was the mortuary like atmosphere filling the warmly lit room and the sluggish sounds of hunt and peck typing coming from Stoker, Chet and Marco as they struggled to carry out Hank's log commandment from earlier.

Next to Kelly, was a pile of crumpled typewriter paper wads mounded up around his place at the kitchen table and the neat organized reams of papers surrounding the others.

Johnny and Roy skidded to a halt at the sudden reminder of their new job duty. "Oh, that's right.."  
John groaned sarcastically. "And here I had almost forgotten about this..."

"Wish I had your capacity for forgetting.." Roy quipped dryly as he poured out a cup of java for himself. He ignored Johnny's pro-offered mug that was nonverbally asking for some, and he moved forward to see what Mike was typing for his log form up close, pretending to not even see Johnny's move at all.

Gage made a face at his partner and filled his cup with a grimace, on his own, from the pot.

Roy threw out a finger. "Hey,... nice neat rows there Stoker."

"Thanks.." Stoker grinned, without looking up. He had a correcting pencil perched over one ear that hadn't even been used.

Johnny likewise, snuck a peek over Chet's shoulder at his work and started laughing. " You're having trouble spelling your own name?" he asked incredulously. He snatched up a random reject discard and unrolled it. "And this one's got our call sign misspelled. How could ya have screwed up typing "KMG 365", Chet?"

Stoker and Lopez chuckled from their seats, but didn't look up from their work of index finger typing.

Kelly snatched the wrinkled paper out of John's hands and he immediately began nesting the other rejected paper balls protectively into his arms. "Hey! Quit being nosy, geesh. What do I have to do to get a little privacy around here? Build my own personal office?"

John didn't miss a beat. "You don't have to, Chet. Just borrow Henry's doghouse if you wanna do that."

That won Gage an even louder mirthful reaction from the guys. "Are you even gonna answer my question?" Johnny went on, relentless and towering over Chet's chair.

"What question?" Kelly asked with an irritated edge.  
Already his attention was bent on ignoring his worst tormentor and concentrating on his newest hated chore.

Roy spoke up for Johnny. " The one about getting down "KMG 365" wrong.."

"Oh." Chet said unenthusiastically. "I just get all these numbers up here all confused." he said gingerly pointing at that row on his manual typewriter. "They just don't feel right under the fingers, know what I mean?"

"Yeah..I know what ya mean." Roy said with a mild empathy and he took another sip of coffee.

Gage leaped up and sat butt perched on a kitchen chair's back instead of on the seat where his shoes parked.  
"So, whatcha gonna pay me to do your reports each week, Chet..?"

That made Kelly blink more than twice at Gage.  
"Believe me, Johnny, there isn't anything you do that's worth me giving up a single solitary dime.." he gushed with absolute conviction.

"Suit yourself.." Johnny said and he hopped off the chair to plunk down into the vacant nearby one that still had a brand new plastic wrapped typewriter sitting in front of it. He grandly indicated the neighboring seat and its accompanying unwrapped typewriter to Roy, teasing him into joining in the fun currently ongoing.

Roy just rolled his eyes and took up Johnny's offer of a chair. "It's 'Misery loves company' I guess..." he sighed.  
"I might as well join you all now while I still have the patience.  
I've been dreading this new log recording assignment business the whole way back here.."

"Oh? Why so angsty?" Gage grinned, cock-eyed and bright.

"I can't type much.." Roy growled.

Johnny cracked his knuckles loudly over his typewriter and he pulled off its cellophane wrap. "Too bad. I feel for ya.."  
Then he glanced around for the pile of logs in the middle of the table, grabbed one sixth of the stack as his allotted portion,  
and his eyes fell on the unused ream of typing paper quickly dwindling in front of Chet as he failed yet again to type out the basic information at the top of the form.

"**##&**##!" Chet swore, and he used both hands to angrily rip out the mistyped page from his typewriter.

Johnny used that moment to snag a blank sheet for his own use from Kelly's pile.

"Hey... go get your own.. I don't have that much here for myself as it is.." Chet complained.

"If you'd quit wasting it so fast maybe you'd be able to make it last a little longer.. Here.." And Johnny lifted the erasure pencil from Mike's ear in an easy grab and handed it to Chet in appeasement. "Maybe you oughta learn all about having one of these then.."

Mike felt the robbing but disregarded it, eyeing up his own close work of careful hunt and pecking.

"What's this?" Kelly asked.

"What do you think it is?"

"A pencil.." Chet said, with "duh" written all over his tone.

"A correction pencil.. It erases typing marks. Watch.."  
And Johnny inserted his stolen fresh piece of paper into his new typewriter and his fingers flew through his own name on the letter keys, typing. He intentionally typed a "Z" after the "e" in Gage. Then he showed Chet how the pencil worked. "See? Look. There's no sign of ink where the "z" was here anywhere. Problem solved.." Gage concluded, tossing the pencil down on top of the table.

Chet froze, blinking again. "Wait a minute. Wait a minute.  
How'd you do that?"

"Do what? Use the pencil?" Johnny asked with a smirk.

"No, dummy. How'd ya type so fast?"

"Who? Me? I wasn't typing fast. I.....I.." he stuttered.

"Yes you were. I just watched you.." Chet fluttered a few fingers in Johnny's direction. "You musta got out your name in .....what, Roy, half a second?"

"At least..." Roy agreed with a yawn as he pulled off the new wrapping on his typewriter and got it set for his use.

Cap sailed into the room, seeking coffee.. His face immediately frowned when he hefted the pot.

"What's the matter, Cap?" Gage asked.

Cap glared at Kelly and turned the pot upside down to show its empty state..

Chet shot up out of his chair to make a new one lickety split.

Cap rubbed his nose as he regarded all his men sitting with the logs and the new machines. He seemed not to see any of them, lost in thought. Then he asked. "How's our UPS man?"

"He's gonna make it." Roy grinned. "How's the delivery truck?  
Were all those packages Stoker said he talked about delivered on time..?"

"Have you ever known UPS to be late on any delivery?" Hank countered.

All the gang shook their heads ruefully.

"I swear they had a new driver here faster than we usually get our ambulances on scene, once I called them about his sudden illness." Cap joked. He watched Chet pour piping java into his empty mug absently. Then he sat down at a typewriterless spot at the kitchen table.

This time Marco spoke up. "What's the matter, Cap?"

"Hmm? Oh, nothing. Nothing. It's just uh, my looking at all these typewriters is bringing back some memories for me, that's all."

"What kind of memories?" Johnny asked, limbering up his fingers for the long task ahead working on the log forms.

Hank laced his fingers together around his coffee mug and actually looked sheepish. "The forgettable kind."

Chet's moustache twitched in amusement as images of McConike's burning hat came to mind. But he said.  
"Wanna talk about them?"

"Not much to say, actually."

Gage caught on to Chet's angling. "Sure there is.. Don't you know that your junior-under-McConike days are one of the great mysteries all your shifts have about ya?"

"Yeah, I know." He drew out an old insignia pin, a double bugle from his shirt pocket and he studied its worn shape.

All the guys grew respectfully quiet and all the typing died away as Cap's face furrowed in a memory that wasn't all that mysterious or happy. In fact.. he looked stunned and very very lost. "Do any of you fellas know what this is?" he said, fiddling nervously with the pin on the table top.

"Yeah, Cap. That's your rank pin for captain off your dress uniform." Gage said straight faced and alert.

Hank didn't speak for a time, and he just swallowed while considering words. Then he practically whispered.  
"That's right. I just found out I've got another time scheduled to use this again, starting tomorrow morning. Actually, it's gonna be time for all of us to ....get dressed up.. I ..I.. just got a call.."

Roy's face blanched when he got what that meaning meant.  
"Who is it, Cap?"

The others' hearts hit their throats.

"Station 8's Captain Stone just got back from assisting at a real bad county fire. He just told me that ..that.." his voice broke as he fought emotions... "Uh,..the first story fell on top of the chief's battalion car as he radioed out orders to the crews. McConike's just died at Rampart."

-------------------------------------------------------

Photo : McConike's red car.. with its door ajar, empty.

Photo : Marco, Cap and Mike looking stunned at the kitchen table.

Photo : Roy and John looking lost, leaning against a wall.

*  
From : "patti keiper" Subject :[EmergencyTheaterLive] The White Helmet Date :Mon, 31 Mar 2003 02:09:40 +0000 Hank Stanley began to twitch under the following silence coming from his men. He found he couldn't even meet their eyes. ::If only they knew how this effects me:  
The gold double bugle pin seemed to burn his eyes in the morning sunlight glinting off of it from the window.

Roy was the first one to speak. "I'm ....very sorry to hear about this, Cap. Is there..is there anything we can do?"

That finally broke Stanley's terrible burden of sharing the dark news. Hank felt suddenly released from its heavy weight. "No, no, no..I'm.. still waiting to hear back from the other companies who are still on that fire cleanup as to details. You know how these things go. Stone only knew what his paramedics told him when they called from the hospital. He--he said it happened only a few minutes ago. Something about ah, his heart shutting down because of fluid building up around it..?" Cap guessed helplessly inept at the right elusive medical term.

"Sounds like it was cardiac tamponade.." Gage said softly,  
abandoning his coffee mug. "The docs probably couldn't tap it in time, especially if there were other problems going on with the crushing inj..." Johnny trailed his voice off suddenly thinking better of his choice of words and the subject matter. "ugh,..yeahhhh.." he said lamely to end it.  
He cleared his throat and studied his shoes to avoid Cap's intense gaze following his answer as to a possible why.

Again, all the gang muffled into silence. That simple happening suddenly grew intolerable for Hank.  
Cap's eyes filled and he swung into immediate motion,  
standing so fast that the chair behind him loudly impacted against the wall.  
"Oh, ..uh..nothing they could've done then to save him, huh?" and he sucked in a controlling breath to quell his rising grief. "That's.. that's too bad.. I...I'm really gonna miss..."  
Cap couldn't complete his sentence.

Roy and John didn't dare to say anything.

This time, the silence cut like a knife and Cap.....moved.  
He darted forward, suddenly snagging the stack of logs that was their current headache and picked it up, leafing through to the back section where they had their list of monthly fire inspection addresses.. His finger eagerly traced down the page as he read them quickly. "There.. there's one we can go to...right there.." and he stabbed his finger down on the page at one particular one at the very edge of their jurisdiction. Roy couldn't help but notice that the address was practically next to the fire that had killed McConike.

The slate clattered back onto the table. "Stoker,..note number seven's location.. We're leaving.."

All the guys startled at the highly irregular decision.

Even Chet ejected. "Cap..we're bringing the engine to do a hazardous property inspection?"

"And the squad....." Hank nodded curtly. "Move."

Everyone scrambled for the bay.

Kelly lingered. "Cap, HQ is gonna think this is weird. Are you sure you wanna d--"

Hank whirled on the Irishman. "Are you questioning your captain's judgement?!"

"No, Cap, I uh..."

"Fine. Go get your coat on and stuff a sock in it."

"Yes, sir.."

Cap's tight flurry of firm action jolted the men into obeying the odd order even faster and then all piled into their turnouts. Stoker put the big engine into drive and then put both feet on the brake, waiting for Cap to board her as the garage door opened.

Hank Stanley moved to the response mic. "L.A. This is Station 51. We're 10-8 to 1457 Addison on a citizen's report about a fire hazard. Going to check it out.."

##10-4, Station 51. Updating your location's status. Time out,  
9 : 34.##

In the rig, Chet murmured.. "Can he do that?"

Marco slapped him on the arm sharply to be quiet.

Roy and Johnny fidgetted in the squad for a moment putting on their helmets and peering out at the wall map for the address's cross street until they knew exactly where to go. Then they headed out with their lights darkened.

Stoker soon followed in a likewise darkened Ward LaFrance.

As they turned left onto the avenue, Roy couldn't hold it in. "You just had to open your big mouth, didn't you?  
That was probably the worst thing you could have said to him.."

Gage's face animated. "I didn't mean to say things the way I did, Roy... It just sort of....slipped out.."

"Yeah? And now Cap's probably gonna be flipping out. Are ya happy?" DeSoto countered. "He's probably outta his skull right now imagining things.."

Johnny didn't say anything and clammed up.

Roy spoke again after a full minute of nothing.  
"You know what he's up to, don't you?"

Gage pulled his face away from his hand and elbow perched out the window. "I...I....well, not exactly.."

Roy looked straight ahead, concentrating on the driving.  
"He's going to the fire scene. Where it happened."

Johnny's head whipped around in surprise and his mouth gaped open.

-------------------------------------------------------

Benjamin Stone wearily stood on the crumbling brick crackling under his shoes as he finished directing the engine companies to those areas of the hotel that were still stubbornly smoking over his HT now set to command frequency.

He was surprised to see Station 51 weaving in between the working units and to his command area that he had assumed when McConike went down. He barely remembered finishing his radioed order as they pulled up. He didn't have to ask the reason why they were there. One other station company from L.A. County suddenly had invented excuses to be in the barrio neighborhood right then, too.

Ben stepped forward as the 51 gang bailed out.  
He didn't say anything as Hank's eyes suddenly fell on what was left of the dusty red battalion car still partially buried in debris. He briefly turned down his radio volume.  
Captain Stone saw Hank freeze into place in shock as the whole situation suddenly slammed into ugly reality for him. Benjamin just stood quietly next to his colleague and waited. So did Chet, Marco, Mike, Johnny and Roy.

Then Cap spoke without looking at Ben. "You're in command now?"

Ben nodded.

"You should be wearing the white now. Departmental policy.."  
Cap said waving an absent hand towards Ben's captain helmeted head.

Ben flinched, but again, Ben nodded numbly.

"I'll go get it.." Hank mumbled tightly, his voice full of powerful emotion.

Gage immediately stepped forward.. "No. Wait.. Cap. Let us go for it.. You don't have to be the one to go over there."

Hank shrugged off Gage's gripping glove mutely and ordered.  
"Stay here."

The others watched Cap slowly pick his way to the spot where IV papers and EKG patches and spent syringes marked the place where Station Eight's medics had treated McConike on the ground.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Privately, Hank was very glad the car's paint job and interior upholstery were both red as he dug bricks and smouldering boards out of the way until he could reach into the nearly flattened car's passenger seat for the white battalion chief's helmet he knew one of the treating medics would have thrown there. He found it under McConike's unused gloves and situation slate.

A sob escaped when Hank finally lifted it out into the light and smoke.  
There was no red coloring here to hide the copious fresh blood, still staining it.

Backing out of the chief's car, Captain Stanley searched for and found a hose puddle nearby to wash it off. He bent down, peeling off his own gloves to do the task.

Benjamin Stone immediately hurried over to help him with it.  
"Hank.. let me help.."

Stanley stiffened at first, but then he nodded, meeting Ben's smoke red eyes.

He was in the presence of an equal at last so Hank let his pain out into the open, and he began to cry, his face streaming in rich tears.

Benjamin Stone made sure his back was hiding Cap's face from the view of the rest of 51's men. "It's ok.. We're here together. And I just heard over the comm that Station 127 is on the way, too."

"Good man, Captain Gorman. Glad he found a way to make it over here." Hank sniffed.

"Yeah.." Stone sighed, holding both of their HT radios in his lap while they crouched and washed.

Soon, the blood stains were gone and the two captains had dried the white chief's helmet off with their sleeves.  
"Here..." Hank said when they were done. "You take this until we find out who is getting it permanently. Might be you.."

Ben met Hank's gaze and set a glove on Cap's shoulder.  
"Might be you, too, Hank. You've got the most seniority even over me."

Stanley's mouth twitched painfully but he didn't make a noise beyond a terse. "Yeah, maybe."

"You know HQ won't tell us who's got the chief's job until after the funeral."

"Yeah, I know.. But you're still at this fire scene and it's still today.  
And we both know the highest on scene officer from the initial set of called out stations has to take over. "

Now it was Ben's time to lose it and his face twisted.

Hank spoke quietly, "Put this on, Ben." he said, polishing the white helmet once more to be sure it was clear of any sign of soiling. "He would have wanted it that way. Procedure, you know?" Captain Stanley sighed, wiping away the tears blinding him before any of the other firemen with the nearby hoses from County could see any of his weakness.

"McConike was all that.." And then Ben smiled as he pulled off his white crested cap's helmet for the white chief's one. He sighed as he tightened the helmet's damp chin strap.

"He sure was."

Together, the two captains returned to Stone's engine while Ben completed coordinating the fire's final cleanup as temporary battalion chief.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Captain Stone talking with Hank Stanley.

Photo: Chief McConike with County firefighters..

Photo : Stoker and Cap in the Engine going to a fire scene.

Photo : Night hotel fire..

******************************************* From : "Cassidy Meyers" Subject : For Every Action.... Date :Fri, 04 Apr 2003 15:50:47 +0400

The rest of the gang dared not approach Hank and Ben where they were quietly discussing the progress of the containment on the still smouldering hotel fire.

"Are you going to go over there?" Marco elbowed Chet.  
"I'm not going to go over there. It's none of my business."

"Oh? really? It WILL be our business if headquarters finds out we're not reporting to the location we said we were going to go to. And it won't just be Cap's butt in a sling, it'll be all of our rears, too." Kelly complained plaintatively.

Gage, who was leaning on the squad's hood with his helmeted chin propped on a hand, shot an irritated look at Chet, but thought better about saying anything.  
::Deep down inside, I know he's right..:: Gage thought privately. ::But d*mn it. Last thing I need is a formal reprimand on my station record for deriliction of duty.::

It was as if Roy was clairvoyant. He spoke aloud as if answering Johnny's private thoughts. "You know, we might get off the hook here since it was all Cap's idea.."  
he murmured, matching his partner's nervous, feigned looking-bored pose on the fender. Only difference was that Roy had his own helmet off in respect for the tragedy which he knew was only just beginning to tear Hank apart despite his tall friend outwardly beginning to look calm, cool and collected once more.

"Now that's a little callous don't you think?" Gage rounded on Roy.

"No, I-I...it's not callous at all. I'm just being practical. That IS how it'll rule one way or another if we're caught being off the beaten track like this." DeSoto said, nonplussed. "Besides, you know I'm right because I know positively about what you're thinking. It's a gift I've picked up after serving with you for half a dozen years." his voice cracked.

Johnny's face fell into annoyed denial as Roy's point stung home once more. "Ok, Allright. So you know what I'm thinking. So let's just clarify a few points on that then. All right.. This is exactly what I'm thinking.  
I can't HELP thinking the worst, Roy, at this point .  
And I'm sure the rest of the guys are doing it, too." he insisted passionately. "And let me add another thing while you're digging around in my head. It's sheer craziness to think it's only us and Kelly who are noticing that Cap's just a little bit off his rocker."  
he said waggling his fingers in a so-so gesture in the air. "Just look how those county guys are whispering behind Cap's back like that. It's getting me mad.."

Roy sighed and leaned against the squad, hanging his head down in fatigue, "Nothing like a cold impersonal phone call to be the bearer of bad tidings. That must have been difficult for Stone to have even called Cap on this whole messy nightmare so soon."

"I know. I know." Johnny insisted. "And I know Stone really well,  
too. I mean he was MY captain before CAP was my captain and Ben was also my paramedic partner even before you got your claws sunk into me for the duration." Gage snorted. "Ben's handling it real good. And so are we,.." he glared at Chet.." for the most part."  
he angled at the curly haired fireman taking a drink at a leaky hydrant close to the engine. "Only what do we do about Cap in the meantime?"

"What do you mean what do we do in the meantime?" Roy fired back.

Chet spit out his water in between Roy and Johnny to shut up their squabbling. "Ok, here it is in a nutshell since your higher educated minds seem to be having trouble grasping what the problem is. Let me reiterate for ya in one sentence!" he shouted. "We can't let Cap keep us on a hotspot after hauling us off like this on a whim. It's bad for business." Chet insisted.

"Would you pipe down..?!" Gage hissed. "They'll hear you."

"Fine, Johnny. Just as soon as you do. I came over here to tell you exactly the same thing.." Kelly said with finality,  
and he immediately walked away, with his hands jammed into his pants pockets around his turnout coat and he angrily yanked at his helmet strap until it was dangling loose.

Gage caught his breath into an aggravated sigh and ran both sets of fingers through his hair just to have something to do. He shook his head at Kelly's back and retreated from all of them by putting on his helmet and sitting down dejectedly in his seat inside the squad. He punctuated his unhappiness by slamming shut the door on its hinges.

Roy glanced up and saw that Hank seemed to be drawing strength from the close presence of Stone and mentally,  
he began amending his concern about Cap bending protocol to be at a fatality scene. ::Maybe it's a start on his accepting the fact that his old captain's truly gone. I know how I would feel if I had been the one digging out Hank's helmet from that car. I don't even want to imagine what Cap's going through right now..:: he reasoned privately.

DeSoto gave a short wave at Mike Stoker to tell him to tell the others that he would be the one to go over where Hank and Ben were, to....gently.. tell him the company consensus about being tardy for the fire hazard call, however bogus it really was.

He waited respectfully, his helmet still off, a short distance away from the two higher ranked men, quietly. But then his HT came to life sounding a tones out for another squad. The loud squelching reply of the responding team caught him unawares and he jumped. Soon, DeSoto found himself on the receiving end of two curious glances from Stone and Stanley. "Sorry, Cap... Captain Stone....Uh, I suppose you're wondering why I'm over here against a direct order.  
Umm.. so I'll just out with it.. Cap, how are you doing?" Roy asked.

Hank had his control back on his emotions, at least the ones Roy could visibly see and any possible reprimand he normally would have dished out, died before aborning.  
"I'm ok, I guess. We're just.... I... am just.. uh.. Well, you see Ben and his men are still cleaning up." he said lamely, trying to smile.

Roy nodded quietly. "Is there anything you fellas want us to do back there while we...hang out?"

It was as if Cap suddenly remembered where he was. He seemed to drag himself back as if he had been some great distance away and he started murmuring apologies fluidly.  
"Oh, oh, oh.. Sorry, Ben. ohmyg*d. Sorry, Roy. I guess I - I wasn't thinking straight when I dragged us all out here. I..."

"Don't worry about it, Cap." Roy said, setting a hand on Cap's arm. "You had to come."

Hank's face mellowed into a tortured acceptance and then he met Roy's eyes very like a child's for an instant, before his command ability took over once more. "Yeah, well, thanks for letting me stay. In letting US, ....stay.." he corrected, offering Ben an ungloved handshake of profound gratitude.

Being in front of one of Hank's regular men, Ben didn't do anything different but grasp that handshake back, with both palms warmly. "No problem. Uh,...I guess I'll see you both at the services tomorrow morning, Hank." and then Ben walked away, still feeling very uncomfortable under the nods of respect coming from all the firefighters from the city for assuming the chief's post as he had done. "Oh, yeah." Captain Stone said, turning back towards Hank. "I forgot to tell you this earlier, Hank. Gail wants to see you before the funeral."

Cap's mouth opened but he didn't have to say anything out loud. He just nodded that he understood.

"Call me if you need anything, Hank. I know how much the chief meant to you for I...know ...just how terribly much he meant to me, even if.. I'm realizing that ..only now."

"That same thought is hitting all of us Ben. I'm just the first to feel it, I guess. And about Gail. I won't forget.  
Same goes for the phone call offer. In reverse right back at ya.." Hank said striding away at last.

Ben gave a short salute that whispered a painful reminder to Hank of McConike, but then Ben disappeared into the veil of smoke, around the corner of his engine.

Roy flanked Cap and he and Stanley started their way across the street back to where the rest of the gang and the vehicles were idling. "So, what next? Going to call in to renege that false citizen's report."

"I'm doing nothing of the sort. I'll just tell it like it is.. Look.." and he pointed down the block towards the Addison address that he had so bogusly given dispatch on the way out.

Roy started smiling and shook his head. "Truck 127 beat us to it with the same idea, eh?"

"Yep. Looks like they're covering for Gorman so he can get in his own time with Ben and this ....awful fire. Can I help it if our two calls got crossed over the airwaves again?" he said throwing his arms up in mock mystification.

"Guess not.." Roy grinned, folding his arms in front of himself in relief at Cap's sudden sense of humor.

Captain Stanley pulled his HT out of his pocket.  
"L.A. This is Station 51."

##Go ahead, 51.##

"L.A., Truck 127 has doubled our response to the hazard call. We're returning to base."

##10-4, 51.## Spap.

Cap guided Roy on ahead of him with an affectionate grip on the shoulder as they started walking again.  
"So, you drew the short stick to come fetch me?"

"More like my having the longer backbone to do it, Cap."

"Being practical as always, eh? I've always liked that about you, Roy. It's a strong beginning sign of a good departmental candidate..." and he strode on ahead of him as he gestured to Stoker to put the rig in driving gear for a return trip.

Roy stopped in his tracks at Cap's use of the past tense and the hints about a possible other future for himself. ::Now just what in HECK did that mean?::

The sight of Station 127's Captain Gorman, kneeling before McConike's crushed batallion car in a private prayer, drove away all further thoughts concerning his own well being in DeSoto and the sandy haired paramedic left the depressing street to rejoin Johnny in the squad.  
Uncharacteristically, Gage was behind the wheel.

::Guess I'm not the only one feeling jumpy about Cap today..:: Roy mused.

----------------------------------------------------------

At Rampart, Dixie kept looking up at the hallway which led to the main Emergency Doors. She had just arrived from home to start her swing shift when she had heard the shocking news of Chief McConike's passing.

She had glanced up for the fifth time when Kel, standing next to her, finally commented about it. "Are you expecting someone?" he asked. Then he quipped, "I mean apart from the emergencies you and I usually see every day.."

McCall chuckled with a wry smile. "As a matter of fact, yes, I am. Though I wish I weren't. I hate it when there's a death in the FD. Seems every man on the department finds his way here to be with the deceased's family or with the deceas--." she said, breaking off, not elaborating further.

Brackett looked up and stroked her arm in support.  
"Yeah, they always come. But this particular one's probably just striking the men a little harder and deeper than most. He was a popular man. Maybe even infamous to some. But I do know his sudden death's effecting even me. Chief McConike was one of the lynchpin lecturers who helped me out in court during the early stages of the paramedic program. I honestly believe that if it hadn't been for him, there'd BE no paramedic program. And Roy would probably be just another engine fireman. And Johnny.."

Dixie grinned. "And Johnny would probably still be a juvenile delinquent serving off probationary time as a volunteer pumper man at Eight's."

Brackett sighed, tapping the side of his unread chart into his palm. "Well said. And it's all true. We owe alot to what the chief stood for and all that he's done for us.."

"But that still doesn't explain why no one's shown up yet, Kel.  
Nurse Evan's told me that it's already been an hour and a half since he died."

"Maybe the initial shock and disbelief has a lot to do with it. I still can't believe it and I was there when Joe pronounced him. It'll take time to really sink in."

Dixie set down the coffee cup that suddenly didn't taste good anymore. "Anything I can do for you, Kel? ...You're the only one within my empathy's range so far."

Kel's easy smile fell away. "The Chief's still in the treatment room.  
And the mortician's now ready to do his prelim death certificate exam downstairs. Would you mind taking him down there personally, for me? Joe needs me in treatment five on the case with ketoacidosis now that she's responding to him and I won't have the time t--"

"Sure, Kel.. Somehow it's fitting that a friend, and not just some nameless orderly, goes with him, to his last visited place here at the hospital."

"Thanks, Dix." And Kel was gone in a flurry of white.

-  
Dixie McCall took a deep breath before entering the darkened room. She was ready for just about anything regarding the state of McConike's fatal injuries.  
What she wasn't prepared for, was that Gail, was still there.  
By herself. "Oh, my g*d, Gail. You're alone?"

"Dixie?" said the older woman, lifting her head from McConike's still hand. "I-Is that you?" she sobbed.

Dixie hurried around the bed and enveloped the petite Irish woman deeply into her arms. "I'm so sorry I wasn't here when he was brought in. I just got on duty about five minutes ago." Then her anger rose. "When I get through talking with my nursing staff about leaving you here like this, why I--"

"Dixie, it's not their fault. I asked them to go away and to wait on telling my family. I wanted to do it. Only, I haven't been able to move..." and she fell into yet another string of crippling sobs.

Nurse McCall pulled over an exam stool for Mrs. McConike and sat her down. She then paced over to the medicine cabinet and located some kleenix. Then she knelt by the distraught woman, holding her hand and set the box of them onto her lap. "It's ok, Gail. We'll tell them just as soon as you've hold enough over your emotions to do it. Here, have some more." she said gently. Then she hugged Gail tightly in utter sympathy and Dixie felt her own eyes sting with moisture. "I know. I know.."  
she soothed as Gail cried even stronger. "Your husband was a great great man, and I'm utterly proud of the fact that I had the wonderful privilege of knowing him." she said, her voice breaking, too..

Gail clung closer to Dixie and only then did the full brunt of her grief finally come rippling out.

It was a long time later, when Gail began to relax.  
She sighed, looking at Dixie, but then she rose from the stool to take McConike's work gnarled palm once more into her own. "I suppose you came in here, to..."  
and her breath hitched only slightly. "...to take him away.."  
Dixie went to her side and gripped her hand, but she nodded. Mrs. McConike had as level a head as her thirty years husband once did and she said.  
"Well, I suppose you do need this space for others now. " she sighed quietly. "Can I help you with him?" Gail asked, suddenly seeking Dixie's face for anything, any task at all just to have something to do.

Dixie's face calmed then and she smiled slightly. "Of course... There's only a few things we need to do first before I leave with him. We will be moving him to a private suite downstairs until your family comes."

"I'd really like that.. please.."  
Gail's eyes were grief bright but brave, as she beheld her husband's shattered body when Dixie lowered the sheets to disconnect all tubes from the quiescent machines surrounding him.

"I'll make the arrangements myself.."

"Thanks.." she sighed.  
"Dixie?"

"Yes?"

"Do you think..uh, do you think Melton felt anything when the building--"

"No, no, Gail. I don't think he did. His paramedics said that he was unconscious immediately afterwards because his helmet couldn't provide enough prot-- uh.." she broke off, mentally kicking herself for talking so frankly medically speaking. "He was knocked out then, Gail. Right away. So I don't think he was even aware of what was happening to him. Some of McGiven's personal notes said as much on his run sheet."

Gail just held a hand to her mouth, staying still, then she spoke at last. "You two must be right, for h-he does look very peaceful."

"He does.." Dixie instantly agreed.

Gail lovingly ran her hand up the quiescent Chief's arm and to his face before she gave him a soft kiss on his bandage wrapped forehead around the cervical collar. "Are-are you going to take that....out?" Gail said, pointing to the EOA still taped to her husband's very pale lips as she smoothed down his gore crusted hair.

"I'm afraid we're not allowed to. That will have to stay there. I'm sorry. But you can help me with this if you like?" Dixie said,  
unfolding a liquid proof satchel from a lower cupboard that was person sized. ::Thank g*d, this looks like a sleeping bag.:: Dix thought. "We ...have to get him off ...this backboard next." she said gauging Gail's reactions to all her information. But McConike's small wife was very solid even at the height of her despair and her color never wavered into fainting shades.

Dixie decided to let her stay in the room for the rest of his post care.

"Ok..k" Gail said. "Can we wash him up first, Dixie? I-I don't want him to look unpresentable to--" she said, her voice breaking.

"Sure we can.. I'll go grab a basin from over there." Dix said. She knew from the tight bandaging on the chief's wounds that most places she could see on him could be cleaned without unnecessarily horrifying Gail with their post death bleeding. She had already seen the snugly taped off sites where the earlier nursing staff had stopped the chief's running IVs so those punctures wouldn't do just that in front of family members.  
As they gave McConike his final bath, Gail began to sing a hymn to him, very softly, and its sweetness made some of Dixie's pain and her own, waft quietly away into the stillness of the treatment room.

-  
Lunch was completely untouched, but sleep still tried to sneak up on most of the gang hanging out in the rec room and kitchen. Cap, had secluded himself into his office, and uncharacteristically, his door was shut to his men.

Gage had noticed that detail after he had taken his afternoon shower. He looked up at Roy, pouring himself a cup of coffee.  
He made a face when the first sip entered his mouth, cold.  
But Johnny hadn't the heart to complain to Stoker to make any new coffee despite it being his task today to cover that chore.  
Johnny did it himself, without a fuss, only afterwards saying.. "Huh.. not hungry either eh?" he asked Stoker, patting him on the shoulder around where the engineer was hiding behind his newspaper for some privacy.

"Not especially. Even Boot's not eating." Stoker replied without taking the paper down between them.

"Really?" Gage said in surprise, looking around.  
"Now, just where did Boot go?"

"He's in the office with Cap.." Chet said, looking up from a word find that he really wasn't concentrating on with any enthusiasm. "He kept scratching on the door to be let in until Cap finally did it."

"Oh." The fact that Boot was sticking to Hank like glue began to worry Gage big time.

Roy had overheard the conversation but decided to be just a mousy listener for the duration. He got out a mop bucket on his own volition and started methodically mopping the undirty floor. Mike dutifully lifted up his feet when Roy got to his side of the table.

"Who cooked today?"DeSoto finally asked, seeing the untouched stroganoff pot cooling on its orange potholders on the table.

"Cap..did. He got it made and on the table in less than ten minutes while you two were out back helping Marco hang that hose." Kelly replied.

Roy tried a little psychology. "Man, sure smells good. It would be a shame to let such a great meal go to waste." he said to the room at large.

"I don't see you eating any.." Marco said from his place slumped on the couch, pretending a snooze with a magazine over his eyes.

Roy mildly cocked his eyebrows at being outsmarted in his own game. "I might...." he admitted, sliding the pot of pasta with his mop handle to a place more center on the table. Stoker began unnecessarily straightening out a few table place settings as Roy concluded his sentence.."..later..." DeSoto admitted.

Johnny finally moved from where he was numbly standing,  
seeking a seat. He almost sat in Cap's recliner when he changed his mind at the last second, nimbly. "Oh, no.. I'd better stay out of his SPOT.. He might be coming out any second now. "

"Wanna bet?" Chet said sarcastically. "Cap's really busted up.  
Didn't you see his face out there, Johnny? I've never seen him so hurt, not even when he was partially electrocuted from that wire the other year."

Johnny's crafty helping grin fell away into one of worry almost as deep as Marco's.

Even Roy stopped mopping.

"Just what do you think he's doing in there? Sounds quiet. If he wanted to get away to let loose a few tears he could've gone out into the yard. No one would've bugged him until the tones went off."

"Who knows, Chet.." Johnny said sharply. "How can any of us say how Cap should be reacting right now? I mean he just lost his best friend.." then he amended himself. "All right, maybe not his completely best friend, but McConike sure as h*ll was a close fellow colleague and coming to that, now that I think about it, McConike was Cap's old CAPTAIN, long before any of us even KNEW about firehouses.." Gage concluded. "So of course he's bound to act a little weird. I know I would act a little nuts myself if I had found out that Cap had been the one squashed in that car this morning."

No one debated Johnny's theory or voiced an opinion about the tacky way Gage referred to McConike's grisly end.

The silence dragged almost as slowly as the afternoon sun.  
Until Roy began mopping again.

Johnny rubbed his face in fatigue and parked on the couch next to the nonsleeping Marco. "Man, what I wouldn't give for an alley dumpster fire right about now, anything for a little distraction..."

-------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo : Cap kneeling on the ground by a house.

Photo : Dixie and Brackett leaning into the base station receiver with pained looks on their faces while they listen.

Photo : Mrs. McConike singing a hymn in darkness.

Photo : Johnny Gage sitting, thoughtful for once to the guys.

Photo : Boot, waiting anxiously by his food, not eating.

Gif : ETL theater Banner, pink tones, saying, "Watch out for the smoke at Emergency Theater Live. Come get a good lungful.." featuring a hurt Johnny Gage, an injured cannula'd woman, and firemen fighting a hazy fire.

*  
From : "Cory Anda" Subject : [EmergencyTheaterLive] Sky Heat... Date : Sun, 06 Apr 2003 04:08:03 +0000 It was as if a diety had been listening. The tones went off and they went off long. Johnny flung his eyes upward in a grateful gesture and said,  
"Thank you.." with all the sincerity he could muster.

##Station 51 with brush assignment Station 36. Automobile accident. Half mile north of Topeka Canyon on Alameda Way. Half mile north of Topeka Canyon on Alameda Way. Engine 36 reports smoke showing off road. Be advised Chopper Nine has been notified. Time out, 14:06.##

As one, the gang rushed out but not before grabbing a breadstick or two each from a lunch basket for fortification. Roy was nearest, so he acknowledged the run, "Station 51, 10-4, KMG 365."

Running along the wall towards the squad,  
Johnny saw Cap's office door open as Cap ran out towards the engine. In a brief glimpse, he saw a dusty file open on Cap's desk with official looking papers lying there. And Boot was under the desk, watching Cap go. ::I wonder what in heck those are?:: Johnny wondered. But then the door swung shut on its own,  
blocking out the sight and then there was no more time for speculation.

En route, Cap came over the squad's radio on side channel.##Engine 51 to squad 51. I've just spoken to Captain Carter of 36's. He reports two victims. A mother says her daughter panicked and left the scene; a girl of eleven. His men are trying to locate her but they are being hampered by a grass fire discovered in the area.##

"10-4, Engine 51. " and Johnny hung up the mic on its spigot when he heard the frequency close. "Man, that canyon's still gotta be tinder dry. Remember it from our visit with those anthrax sick wool weavers from last month? I sure hope this one doesn't escalate into a wildfire."

"Yeah.." Roy commented as they sped towards their destination. "I heard from Dwyer yesterday over lunch that all our water choppers are already busy out at the Murphy Canyon Blaze over in the next county. It's amazing that L.A. managed to find one for our call."

##Let's hope we don't need it. ## Gage said, his eyes already tracing the horizon for telltale smoke over by the mountains to the north. ##Last thing I wanna do sweat to death hiking all over those hills wearing SCBA and then needing a sudden bath in a water drop.##

Roy made a face of mutual dislike at the thought and waggled his head in agreement. "Don't speculate too much. I'm not liking the picture you're painting, pally." he teased.

"Wow, would you look at that?" Gage said. "Looks like there's a storm sitting over our mountain."

"Oh, yeah?"Roy said, not looking away from his driving. "Fat lot of good that'll do. That'll be no relief at all. It's too hot to rain."

Fifteen minutes later, 51 arrived at the isolated spot L.A. indicated. The squad pulled a "U"-ie so that it pointed back towards the way out and so did the cumbersome engine. 36 had already strung hoses from the rural parkland hydrant system and Carter and his men's attention were divided between staying with the victim by the shattered car and fighting a brush flare that didn't seemed to have been caused by the car itself.

They gang bailed out. Johnny and Roy immediately headed for the woman seated and hysterical on the ground. She was being supported upright by one of Carter's men. She was already wearing a nasal cannula and was being encouraged not to move around where she sat upright against his shoulder. He told them more. "She got a little too much smoke here. Don't think she's injured. Found her walking around when we got here."

Roy nodded.  
He glanced around while Johnny introduce them and who they were to her. DeSoto looked up at Captain Carter before Hank could drag him away for the fire's details. "Where's your paramedics?" he asked him.

Steven punched down his HT's antennae after listening to a report from his hose team insinuated inside the smoking tall grass. "On another call. That's why you got one." he said with a shrug. Then he turned his attention to his primary hose line washing down around the car itself to dilute any spilled gasoline.

Roy grunted in sympathy and turned his attention back towards his victim.

Cap barked out orders. "Marco. Flank around upwind with our brush hose and back up the beta team in there. Take Stoker with you. Chet, start searching for the missing girl. And this last is for all of you. Have your air bottles glued on tight and I mean it." he insisted, knowing the tendency of his firemen to not want to secure any straps snugly down over their thick coats in such hot weather.

"Right, Cap." they all replied and they scattered.

Hank and Steven locked into further planning immediately.

The woman blurted out actively when she overheard the part about Kelly going after her daughter. "Please, find her. Ohmyg*d. Her name's Alex."

"Alex?" Cap asked. "Chet, you heard that?"

"Yeah, Cap." he shouted, flying into his gear and a search rope tied to the engine in record time. "Are you covering my rope?"

"Yes."

"I was so stupid.." the woman gasped. "Why didn't I expect a bolt to hit the road.. I.."

"A bolt? Bolt of what?" Gage glanced up from where he was carefully examining the mother.

"Heat lightning." Captain Stanley said from nearby.  
"It's what started this fire. Just look at that tree. It's peeling like a piece of rotten fruit." he pointed.

"It was s-so.. loud.." the woman sobbed. "I lost control of the car and crashed into the rocks at the edge of the road."

"All right. All right.." Roy soothed. "Don't worry about your daughter. We'll find her. Just start concentrating on yourself, ok? Try to calm down. You're breathing a little too fast and you're hyperventilating. Just try to relax."

The woman fought to obey, clutching at Roy's jacket.

"Do you hurt anywhere? How's your back and neck?" DeSoto asked her while Johnny got a BP off her arm carefully.

"Uh,...they're o...uh, ok.. I think."

"No pain here?" Roy said palpating around her head and around her neck after he checked out her eyes with a penlight.

The woman shook her head. "I'm fine. *cough* Listen,  
forget about me. I have to go find Alex..!" she tried to rise. All three of them restrained her.

"We are. We are.." Roy insisted."We have someone already doing that. Now you're going to have to calm down a bit and let us finish checking you out. Ok?"DeSoto spoke soothingly.  
"If you try not to panic, you'll feel a lot better."

-  
Chet felt like he was the only one in the world inside the smoky canyon. He felt the drag of the rope bite into his waist as he yanked it over brush and shrubs as he called out. "Alex?! Can you hear me?" Already, the air mask dangling about his neck weighed a ton as he shoved through gnarling masses of dried canyon rushes and oriented himself downridge. ::If I were running from danger. Where would I go?:: he thought. Then his eyes swept into the shadowy trees. ::Man, I sure hope she didn't go in there, that's a high place. Totally unsafe under these clouds.::

Right then, from the very thick copse of eucalyptus trees he was studying, Chet heard a frightened shout. "Mom?  
Where are you?"

Chet shouted back. "She's over here by me! Fire Department!" Then Chet saw a glimpse of white come towards him. ::It's her!:: he thought excitedly. "This way honey. This way! Come on!"

Just as quickly, a tremendous jolt of lightning from the parched sky shot down into the child's thicket in front of Chet,  
knocking him to his knees. Chet reflexively threw an arm over his eyes as the bolt's thunder deafened him and rattled through his very bones. It died away immediately and was not repeated. But the angry snarl of new fire crackled into slow life in the canopy above him and flaming sparks rained down on top of him as fresh smoke rose to strangle him with its sharp bite. He hastily put on his mask,  
crawling forward. "Alex?!"

There was no reply. Chet Kelly no longer knew which direction he was heading in. But the image of the girl's figure was still blazed in his mind's eye. Something made Chet redirect to his left and uphill. His gloves hit clothing.  
"Alex?"

She moaned where she sprawled on the ground, half unconscious. Chet could smell burned flesh coming from her arm. ::She's been hit?:: he wondered.

Kelly whipped off his air mask and gave it to her, coughing in the growing smoke. "It's all right. I got you. Just hang on.  
I'm taking you to your mother." He crouched low enough over the child to monitor her while his other hand dug into his pocket for his HT. "HT 51 to Engine 51.  
I found her. Help me back! And send a hose down my line.  
There's another hot spot!"

##They're on their way. Do you need a stokes?## Cap's voice acknowledged.

"Negative.. Just take up my slack..!" Chet answered back.

##10-4, pal ! I'm taking up your line now.##

Chet snatched up the girl into his arms just as he felt his rope tighten and pull him along by the waist, guiding him up the hill. He kept eyes on the girl's chest as she breathed in the clearer air inside the mask as he struggled with her to the top and the road. Once he saw vehicle red,  
he shrugged off his bottle and her mask and sank down onto a curb by the squad's fender, shouting. "Cap! I'm up!  
Get Johnny over here! I think the lightning got her real bad!"

He lowered the girl to the road just as she went limp.

"Sh*t. Sh*t. Sh*t..." Chet murmured, getting a grip around her jawline, feeling for the presence of a carotid and assuring that she had a clear airway. He could feel how cool and diaphoretic she seemed despite the heat. A pulse was there, thudding irregularly. He slipped a hand to her stomach as he listened at her mouth. "Alex... Can you hear me?" She twitched but failed to breathe adequately to Chet's liking. "Come on, Cap! Gage!  
I'm over here! Get the O2 on the fly!"

Alex's lips starting turning blue. Kelly carefully tipped back the girl's head more where they lay and gave her a breath of his own, followed by another.

Cap shot out of the smoke, dropping Chet's lifeline and crouched by them. "She got a heartbeat?" he asked when he saw Chet doing mouth to mouth.

"Yeah."

Together, Cap and Chet moved off the parking lot curb and stretched the girl out flat and Stanley shoved her white shirt up out of the way, baring her chest so they could monitor her ventilations better. He wrapped his hands around her torso, feeling the effect of Chet's efforts.

After giving her another two breaths, Chet heard and felt the girl start to cough weakly and he lifted his mouth away as her ribcage began to seesaw slightly.

Johnny came running through the murky haze with the clattering oxygen apparatus and the biophone.  
"Whatcha got?"

"I think that last bolt grazed her." Kelly replied. "She quit breathing for a bit. Now, she's dyspneic."

"Let me at her.." Gage said. He hastily set a pediatric demand valve over her face and gave her a couple of rich shots into her lungs. After three,  
he felt her actively resist his aid, against the flow, and he said. "Doing good now. Take this from me. Looks like she's taking draws on her own."

Kelly slid to her head position, wiping the sweat off his brow as he took over her airway care.

Cap glanced at Johnny. "Need me?"

"Nah.. she's stable enough. Don't think she'll crash now." Gage said, yanking his stethoscope from around his neck to his ears so he could listen to her breath sounds. To himself, he was glad the smoke was thick enough to keep the girl's mother from seeing her daughter yet.

Cap then rose and..........

------------------------------------

Photo : Cap holding a woman in comfort.

Photo: A scrub brush fire set by lightning.

Photo: Gang on a rural gravel road by the vehicles.

Photo : Chet with a girl victim on a curb by the squad.

Gif: An oxygen resuscitator.

Photo: Johnny with the biophone.

*  
From :Sam Iam Subject : [EmergencyTheaterLive] Oh For A Drop of Rain... Date :Sun, 6 Apr 2003 11:56:34 -0700 (PDT) .....took a good look around him. ::This is just a two point fire from the looks of it. Just here by the car and then down in the grove where the little girl was found.::

John gave him a fast glance briefly, a barest flickering of the eyes as he checked the little girl for signs of lightning strike.

Cap offered a token nod. "There's no way I'm gonna let that blaze surround us. Not if I can help it." Hank told him.

Johnny and Kelly both grinned while they worked to assess Alex's true condition. Gage replied,  
Cap, it's more like YOU needing to relax. We trust ya, "  
he joked. "It's all that desert dry brush out there that's gotta listen to ya now. Like we do everyday.."

Cap's returning smile was scant. "How's she doing?"

Johnny's smile dropped away in a flash when he got his final blood pressure reading. "Ask me that again in two minutes..all right?" And Gage spoke close to the girl's ear around the oxygen mask. "Alex.. honey, you're doing just fine. Your momma's coming any minute to be with ya.  
Ok.. so don't worry about that. We got ya here with us now safe and sound."

Watching, Hank was touched on a deep level. He didn't know Johnny talked to his unconscious patients like that, on a one to one, being so personal. ::Maybe I just never noticed that before, being always too busy directing a fire scene to see him do it.::

Captain Stanley's thoughts were disrupted when Steven Carter jogged up to them from the direction of both engines. He spoke quietly to just Cap.

Hank noticed that both Steven's gloves were wet.  
"Steve?" he asked. "You took up a hose.. Is everything all right?"

"No. The first fire's getting away from our men. We've gotta move out."

Hank gripped his HT even tighter in worry. "Our victim can't be moved yet, she's only just been pulled out of respiratory arrest."

"Sorry, Hank. Tell that to the fire."

In reply, the bright hazy skies spit heavy heat lightning out at them in an angry rumble, very close above them, making both captains duck reflexively.

Johnny and Kelly, too, both hunched over the burned little girl protectively, eyeing the sky uncomfortably. Chet voiced one word. "Cap?"

"Do it. Immediate evac. The fire's winning. So we're not waiting on the ambulance. You and Gage have five minutes to do what you've got to do. Then I want her packaged up to be taken outta here."

Chet nodded, and he relayed Hank's orders to Johnny when he had a pause on the phone verbally.

The smoke only got thicker, and there was a subtle change causing the hair at the nape of Cap's neck to suddenly prickle in warning. The smell of pungent burning meadow had turned tarry and Cap's eyes suddenly stung in searing steam as a powerful wind gust swept new ash and embers into his face. ::That's blacktop on fire.:: he thought, even though he couldn't see it. ::Aww, nuts.. We don't even have THAT little time?..:: He gave a shout. "Everybody! Masks on! No exceptions! We've a fireline making its way up. It's hit the road already. I want all hose teams to find that new phalange of burn and snuff it out. If we get trapped in here, there's no hope for us on having any air to breathe. Airway protect those victims!..These fumes are only going to get worse."

Steven Carter of 36's lifted his HT. "L.A., this is Engine 36. What's the status of Chopper Nine? Our fire situation is escalating more rapidly than we realized. We've fire on the road. We need an immediately path cleared along the way out of here, a.s.a.p! Respond a full four company brush assignment."

##10-4, 51. ## There was a pause in their HQ transmission. ##Chopper Nine has made a pickup at the reservoir and will rendevous to your location in five minutes.## dispatch answered.

"10-4. Engine 36 out." and Steven pocketted his HT. "There you have it, Hank. It's a scoop and run afterwards."

"We'll be ready.." Cap replied about his paramedics responsibilities and the extra duty his station had to manage them.

The two captains separated to go watch over their own company's activities while they waited for their ace in the hole, Chopper Nine, to come zeroing in. Cap aimed one of the engine mirrors up into the sun as a reflector point to catch the pilot's eye. ::It's not like there's a ton of metal beyond the chrome on our vehicles. He'll spot us just fine:  
he reasoned. Already, the sun was lighting up the speeding, dancing black, gray and white smoke arching over them from the canyon, fanned by the rising storm winds.

As Cap approached the engine, Alex's mother shot to her feet, tearing out of the grasp of the fireman sitting with her, monitoring her D tank's O2 delivery.  
He started after her but Hank waved him still when she rushed over into Cap's arms for reassurance.  
"Did you find my baby? Is she all right?" she sobbed.  
"Please tell me.."

Hank supported her and grasped her firmly by the shoulders. "She's with my men and we're going over to her right now.." He hefted up the woman's oxygen tubing and the apparatus from 36's man and he lifted it under an arm. "This way.. but first, we're switching you to a mask so this smoke won't bother you so much." He pulled down the mother's cannula around her neck and he detached it. Stanley got her into a nonrebreather mask. "Doing this cause the air's a bit dirty over there." He ripped away the cannula's female end off the regulator port and connected up her new mask's line. "Ok. I've got it. Ready?"

The woman fiddled with the oxygen, getting used to it.  
"What about you? There's only one mask here."

"You're forgetting this.." Hank said with a smile,  
lifting his air mask dangling on its connection from his air bottle. "I've got one right here."  
And he moved his helmet long enough to put it on. "Ok, I'm set. Let's go." he said through its face piece, and he led the woman over to where he could just barely make out the squad's outline in the smoke.  
He led her to where they were going well away from any swirling ember clouds to keep her flowing oxygen from living up to its extreme fire risk tendency.

He was more than ready for the woman to try and break out of his grip when they got within eye contact of Kelly's scene.

"Alex!!" her mother shouted, almost darting forward.

Cap hung onto her. "Hold it.. It's ok. It's ok..Easy there."  
he encouraged in a stream. "Alex's just out like that because some lightning landed near her."

"Lightning?!"

Cap fought with keeping his grip on her again firmly.."My men are taking good care of her.."

"Ohmyg*d. Isn't that fatal? Is she all right? Alex! Can you hear me honey? What are you doing? She needs to be in a hospital!"

"Easy, easy.. Maam?.. Just listen to me..all right?  
Alex IS getting treated ..RIGHT NOW ..and there's a doctor on the other end of that phone line you see my paramedic holding. It's like already being in an emergency room. There's nothing they can't do now, that's normally done by a doctor, concerning any definitive care your daughter might need. Think of my men as extensions of that same ER, who just happen to be already HERE."

Captain Stanley felt the woman in his grasp stop trembling and she quieted into a levelheadedness immediately as his words of reason finally sank in.  
Roy, next to them, saw that he wasn't needed to help Cap out with her and he crouched down next to his partner to learn about the little girl's status from him.

Hank let the woman sink down by Chet where he was crouched inside his own air mask, keeping the positive pressured one over the little girl's face.  
Kelly was feeling happy with her respiration status so he said. "Here, mama. Wanna help? Just keep this O2 over her face like I'm doing.." and he guided her hands to the proper places on mask and jaw smoothly.  
"That's right....Set your hands,...just....like..that."

Alex's mother began to burble. "But I don't kn--"

"You're doing fine, maam. Just watch me.  
Keep holding this tight over her nose and mouth to keep all this smoke away from your daughter. Johnny will show you how to punch a button on this valve here if she needs a little more help later on, but only when he tells you too, all right? She's getting enough passively for right now by it just sitting here like this. Got it ok?"

"Uh, y- yeah.." she muffled through her O2 mask.

"Good. What you're doing is absolutely perfect." Chet said tightening the straps on his own mask to cut down the number of times he was coughing from the building smoke. Then he dashed away to get a stokes for the little girl's rush evac.  
Alex's mother immediately calmed down, as Cap knew she would. Chet usually never missed on guessing what was up whenever Cap led a parent close to the paramedic's work space. Kelly had a gift for alway inventing physical things for them to do that didn't get in the way of a victim's patient care.

Johnny delivered his next data set to Dr. Brackett on the phone, shouting so he could be heard through his covering air supply faceplate. "Rampart.  
She's responding on 15 liters of 02. She's got perforated eardrums and positively ID'd dendrictic burns on the upper aspect of her left shoulder. I am getting that pulse rate I gave ya only apically due to vasospasms."

He watched Roy bundle a plastic shock wrap around Alex and tape her arm onto an IV board.

##10-4, 51. Those meds I ordered should calm her down parasympathetically in a few more minutes.  
Continue the IV and strap her in on a backboard with a cervical collar. That active resuscitation's the best thing for her now, until you get her in here. Monitor her vital signs carefully and check her over again for any sign of fractures. She may have incurred some due to the force of the strike she took, even though it's clear to me through your findings, that it wasn't a direct hit.##

"10-4, Rampart."

##And 51, I want you to send me a strip so I can see how her cardiac functi---##

"Uh, doc. We can't right now. We're.." and Johnny lowered his voice so the mother didn't overhear him. "..we're in danger of getting pinned down by a brush fire. We gotta evac her out first."

##By chopper, Johnny?##

Cap got Johnny's attention about his next plan of action by nonverbally pointing to the squad.

"Uh, negative doc. Our chopper's just a water tanker."

##10-4 on that. Uh, what's your ambulance's ETA?##

"We don't h--"

##...have one for the same reason.##Brackett sighed in frustration.. ##I see.. Radio in as soon as possible on any LOC alteration en route when you HAVE a route or any other detrimental change in her vitals signs. Rampart base, signing out.##

"Squad 51." Gage replied by narrowing his eyes in concentration and he flung down the phone and sealed it up into its box swiftly along with the medical gear he didn't need right away. These he handed off to Cap to stow back into the squad that Marco was now backing up towards them.

The little girl's mother looked up. "What's happening?  
Why is that fireman pulling up that fire truck near us?"

Cap spoke with a big smile through his maskplate.  
"That rescue squad's gonna be yours and Alex's ticket outta here. See that stokes, er.. metal bed that Roy is getting set up? Well we're going to give your daughter a lift on top of there while you ride along with them in that cab,  
to Rampart Hospital."

"Alex is going to ride on the roof?"

Kelly chuckled. "Yes, maam, with either Johnny or Roy sitting up there with her. You see, those bars will keep the stokes from sliding around once we get her loaded up. Here, take my radio and you can talk to the paramedic once we're ready. Know how to use a walkie talkie?"

"Y-Yes, I do.."

"Here you go.." Kelly said acting calm as a camel. Inside his boots, though, his toes were curling tighter than his hair.

Johnny's face erupted into a broad smile.  
::I could just kiss Chet. That was ingenius!  
She'll keep calm and cool the whole way now:  
"Ok.. " Gage said brightly, keeping a hidden hand on Alex's chest under her yellow blanket so he could feel her continued breathing and heartbeat without pause. "Roy my partner here's all done getting her into this collar of hers and onto the board. Ready to lift Roy?"

"Yeah.."

"Ok, Alley Oop." and Gage and Kelly and Cap and Roy lifted the small pediatric backboard and the unconscious child and nestled her into the stokes. Again they picked up Alex as a team with that. Two of 36's firemen followed with the gear boxes and 51's defibrillator. Soon, Alex was safely on board the squad's roof deck. Gage climbed on board and sat with the biophone, butt perched on a yellow air store bottle. He hefted his HT to show the girl's mother that he had his for anything she wanted to say to him in route. Then Cap gave her a spare helmet Marco got from the engine for her to wear and they piled on board.

"Kelly, go with Roy and his passenger, all right pal?"

"Right, Cap." Chet answered. He knew he was going along in case the girl soured into V-Fib due to the jostling she was going to have to take while in transport. ::At least the squad's going to be a lot less bumpier than the engine would have been for this.:: Kelly sighed mentally.

The men, calmly loading the mom and girl, made it a point not to look up the road where the fire was eating the pavement into ruin inch by rapid inch, nearer and nearer,  
ahead of them.

::Where's our water drop?:: Cap thought. He refrained from asking L.A. for an ETA on it because Alex's mother now had an HT. He contented himself with rounding up their remaining trailing hose for their rapid getaway attempt and affirming Steve Carter's confirmation that he also, was getting his men and engine out of there in a strategic retreat.

Cap cut away the lifeline Chet had used, still tied to the engine's bumper, and left it lying in the dust on the pavement. Then he was the last man on an engine.

Truck 36 hit its airhorn to inform him that they, too were ready to roll.

Hank eyed the wall of fire blocking their escape route and wondered if they really could make it by charging through when Steve came on the line. ##Engine 36 to Engine 51. I've got an idea. I've got my engineer aloft in our water cannon. He's going to provide a water curtain for your rescue squad.  
Have it roll between, with us two situated at its front and back. My man will keep a nozzle fog on your victim to protect her and your man while we're moving through the firezone.##

Cap thumbed his radio mike derisively. "Let's do it.  
We can't wait. Are you set?"

##That's affirmative.. Just give the word and warn your medic about what we're up to.##

"10-4.." Hank said, using his mirror to watch the bucket on Engine 36's back rise just enough to clear its own cab like a shovel on a snorkle. ::Oh, boy. Gage is going to kill me for this.:: He picked up his HT.  
"Engine 51 to Squad 51.." he hailed.

##Go ahead, Engine 51.##

"Looks like it's going to rain in thirty seconds from the looks of it. Make your victim waterproof. We're breaking out!"  
Hank yelled.

Gage didn't even hit his call back, "What?!" he said immediately getting it and glancing over his shoulder to the looming water bucket now set and locked overhead from engine thirty six. It was hanging only about eight feet above him. He got a salute from the man on board, signing a non verbal countdown from seven.. ::...when his hose's gonna fire. Who thought of that?.. It's absolutely brilliant! And here I was afraid that we were gonna haveta cook a little:: Johnny kept his grip on the little girl's body and wrapped her up around the mask with her sheet. Then he hastily created an umbrella with a row of crow bars, axes and jimmies with a spare tarp over Alex's face and himself.  
Then he gave the bucket man a thumbs up.

Hose water began to rain down on them, adjusting, until it was just a dense coning mist and then Johnny felt a lurch as Roy carefully matched Engine 51's speed and course as they crept down the road towards the raging inferno whose flames were now as high as the tops of wheel wells.

Roy gripped his steering wheel, peering around his moving windshield wipers inside the driving artificial rain, as Stoker paused the Ward right at the very edge of the burning road, waiting for Cap's go ahead. He and Chet gave Alex's mother smiles of encouragement around the fear they were really feeling.

The woman just blinked and talked on the radio.  
"H-Hello.. Johnny? How's Alex?"

Gage heard the mother from under his improvised umbrella and he lifted his plastic wrapped HT to his lips. "Not a drop on her, maam. The weather's fine." he quipped,  
trying to keep his sense of humor. In the dark under the tarp,  
his eyes were on Alex's lit up EKG screen he had going and his stethoscope was in his ears as he monitored her inspiration effectiveness by sound. He slipped in a nasal airway for extra control as he spoke. "We're holed up solid and snug. Don't you worry." ::I'm trying not to.:: a little voice whispered unbidden in his head as he repositioned the demand valve back over her face to keep out the smoke that was still getting in. "Alex and I are ready to rock."

Kelly saw mama's eyes fill, in touched gratefulness, at Gage's brave attempt at humor about their situation.

Ahead of them, in the cab, Cap bit his lip and looked at Marco and Stoker. He lamely attempted the same gallows humor as Gage. "What do ya say? Think Goodyear tires can stand the temperature of molten asphalt and fresh fire? We all got em on.."

Stoker's frowning doubt didn't warm his heart one bit.  
And the fire before them was growing taller.

Cap and everyone in all three vehicles, except Gage,  
looked up into the spiralling columns of smoke for any sign of Chopper Nine and its precious roadsaving load.

Seconds dragged by as they idled, revving up their nerves and engines for what was being forced upon them.

Kelly broke the strained pause building in the squad. "Say," he said turning to the girl's mother. "Did I tell you yet how well transporting folks on truck roofs really works? Well there was this one time where Johnny got himself bit by a rattler...and..I just happen to be with him..And we didn't even HAVE a squad.."

Roy rolled his eyes at the blooming tale.

Sometime in eternity, Cap lifted his microphone and he said.....

------------------------------------------

Photo: John Roy strapping in Alex onto a long board.

Photo: Gage with a stokes victim on top of the squad.

Photo : A canyon brushfire in daylight.

*  
Date: Thu, 10 Apr 2003 19:20:15 +0100 (BST) From: "Katherine Bird" .uk Subject: Fire and Water..

Acknowledgments to Donald Lee, Retired LACoFD Captain about Engine trivia on 51's truck abilities via a snail mail sent flyer and for sending a replica of Johnny and Roy's paramedic patch to the theater hosts to give all of us further encouragement to keep on writing in the spirit of Emergency. )

......"Engine 51, to Engine 36 and Squad 51... Hold your position.. " Cap said, yelling through his air bottle mask.  
He ignored the heavy weight of his loose air bottle rattling on the metal grate of the floor of the Ward beneath where he sat from the rough idling of the engine due to the thinning air surrounding them. "We're going to give the drop three more minutes to happen."

Stoker did what he could to keep the Ward running despite the lean combustion conditions growing under her hood from the proximity of the low fire surrounding them. His bottle was firmly on a hook in the wall of the cab, leaving his feet and hands free to coax the pumper's clutch away from killing the motor and his facemask was hiding his emotions from view as he gripped the large steering wheel in front of him tightly, waiting for the word "go..".

##S- Squad 51, 10-4.## came Roy's nervous voice.

##Affirmative..## came a stronger, more experienced reply from Engine 36 behind Cap's. Carter immediately added more to soothe all listening ears, including L.A.'s Sam Lanier, who was now stuck in the waiting-for-resolution silence mode. ::He's undoubtedly chewing on a few pencil erasers right about now over his inability to direct better air cover to us before we fry.:: Carter realized. He hid his private thoughts with a cheeriness he did not feel. ##No problems here, Hank. My bottled man aloft in the bucket's fine and his nozzle line's fog is still doing its job over your paramedic and victim. Looks like things are still plenty cool enough for them out there##

Mike Stoker grumbled. "We've got an eighth of a mile of hose,  
a thousand gpm pump with a five hundred gallon tank full of water, just sitting here." he said in frustration, "And we can use none of it..?" It wasn't a stab on Cap's decision to try to run and save their rears at all. Hank knew it for what it was. An outburst given inside feelings of utter helplessness, vented in anger. He didn't even glance over at Mike, keeping his eyes on the sky.

"You got that right. We're stuck staying mobile, Mike." Marco shrugged nervously. "Can't be mobile if we've hoses strung out behind us. Only the snorkel can move and use water that way with her bucket.." Lopez said trying to sound calm. Stoker didn't have the heart to tell Marco that he knew that fact better than anyone. Marco tried some levity and he spoke over the tandem HT. "Say gang, we could always roll down all our windows and try to spit on the fire from here.."

Hank tried to grin, but felt numbness twist on his face instead making him lift his radio. "A minute forty more seconds.... Stand by, gang.. Keep watching the sky..." he said through his handy talkie.

--------------

Roy jolted in his seat when a burning tumble weed impacted his closed driver's window. He saw the bucket stream immediately move to drown it out in his side mirror. He took a deep breath through his mask and said, "Chet, the fire's getting too close. Better turn off that O2 on her now. The oxygen's building up too high in the cab for safety. Go to sharing your air. If you run low, we'll use mine between the three of us."

"Right.." Chet said. He pulled off his helmet and calmly began to share his mask with his passenger, holding his breath whenever she took any of hers off it, before taking it back for himself to use.

"But what about my daughter and your *cough* partner? She's still got pure 02 on!" Alex's mother gasped.

Roy smiled reassuringly at her. "He'll discontinue that for manual air. Probably right about now. They'll manage just fine, maam." he saw the mom's skin begin to pale in fear. "Hold that mask completely against your face when you breathe in, all right? Then this heavy smoke won't irritate you at all."  
Kelly and Roy both saw her nod in frightened obedience.

---------------

Up on top, Johnny began to hear the angry crackling of open flames reaching the road near the squad. "Whoa.. That's getting a little too close for comfort.." he mumbled. He quickly shut off the oxygen feed that was leading to Alex's resuscitator and threw its face valve aside. Gage pulled off his helmet and unstrapped his air mask from his face. He sucked in a good lungful from it.  
He paused only long enough to seal the girl's mouth up with a hand before offering his breath of clear air to her through her nose carefully, timing what he gave her to when she attempted an inhalation. He kept up the pattern, giving her air taken from his mask through his mouth, keeping both his eyes screwed protectively shut against the acrid smoke that was now doing its best to make them water fiercely. Even the unconscious girl's cheeks were wet with tears.

In Johnny's lap, the wrapped HT crackled in crisp warning. ##Gage..?## asked Hank..

Johnny looked up from where he was curled around Alex's head and he lifted his HT to his face, shouting from underneath the heavy tarp that was still getting a welcome pounding of water from 36's elevated bucket line. "I know. I know. The fire's near. I've already shut my O2 down! We're still fine..I've figured out a way to keep the smoke from her." then he asked another question changing tact. "How are you doing down there, Mama?" he said, giving Alex yet another following breath of air just as her chest rose with one of its own. "Alex is just napping up here." he said, keeping his eyelids shut to spare himself eye irritation. He used a finger to keep tabs on her carotid while he continued being a clean air source for her. On a sudden idea, Johnny taped the girl's mouth shut with an IV strip to free his other hand to monitor her chest movements. ::I can always tear this off if she gets sick on me.::

## I'm f-fine, Mr. Gage. You guys work like this often?## the mother quipped, trying for humor. Johnny could hear Chet cue-ing her to take another pull from his mask.

"All the time. No sweat. Er,...figuratively speaking." Gage grinned into his radio, wiping the sweat dripping down his face with a sleeve from the fire zone's heat. He gave Alex another smoke free breath through her nose slowly to keep her from getting any of his air into her stomach.

##Mr. Chet just told me about the wild ride you took a few summers ago.##

"Oh, you mean when I got snake bit? Yeah, believe me, I got deja vu visiting me something fierce right about now. But listen, only the snake's got bad memories of that day , I assure you. We ARE going to get outta here. It's only a matter of when that will be. No big deal." he chuckled. Alex twitched, making Johnny open his eyes to squint through stinging smoke at the EKG monitor. ::Tachycardia. D*mn. She's getting shocky despite her IV.:: He turned up its flow to wide open. Johnny began to breathe FOR her, as well as with her after that, at an increased rate. He went on laying down a calming transmission despite his change of treatment. "Kinda comfortable up here. Lotsa room.." he quipped. "And the view's.." he broke off, hearing a thrumming vibration ripple the air and felt the same against the tarp lying across his shoulders. "...great! Cap! Heads up.. It's the chopper at last. I hear it!!"

Right then 36's bucket man thumbed through on the HT frequency. ##HT 36 to the engines and the squad. The air crew's here, arching in at our ten o'clock. I can just see them above the smoke. They are starting their dumping run.##came the fireman's shout, muffled thickly by radio technology and his bottled air mask.

##10-4, bucket HT.## both Caps and Roy acknowledged.

The arriving helicopter's rotor blades buzzed almost vengefully over the firestorm raging its edge over the road in front of the three red fire vehicles. It swept down low over the engines with a brief greeting waggle. ##51 and 36, This is Chopper Nine. Making the drop in ten, nine, eight,....##

"Go!. Go! Stoker! Move it!" Cap shouted as he hit the cab's dashboard. "We gotta time it to get exactly where that falls to spare our tires. Anything we get will only hold for a short bit. The cross wind's too strong. More fire will move in instantly after the chopper lifts away!" Hank shouted to his engineer driver.

Mike Stoker pushed the pedal to the metal and Engine 51 lurched forward, spinning ash behind it.

Cap shouted into his radio. "Roy, go! We're in motion.  
Gage, hang on!"

Gage heard Cap's urgent holler and grabbed onto the squad's roof rail above him and a bottle bracket as he continued to stay positioned over Alex's face to aid her breathing. "Here we go, Alex. We're getting outta here." he coughed before leaning over and imparted to her another shared breath.

Time seemed to stand still for all of them.

-------------------

The brush fire writhed like a furious beast under the sudden chemical onslaught released by the helicopter sweeping above it. A rain of retardants and lake water bit deep into the block of flames on the road and completed just before Engine 51, the Squad, and Engine 36 sped through the place that had been tricked chemically into turning from raw plasma to just a hissing morass of earth stained ground steam.

Walls of flame and rolling alighted tumble weeds shot around them, as Chopper Nine's backwash and dump shoved the inferno away from the vehicles. Then flames, newly pushed by the high storm winds still roaring above the valley, rallied, and suddenly, the three speeding trucks seemed trapped by the raw heart of the wildfire's flames once again.

Their bid for the canyon's rim and safety was instantly compromised when their surrounding smoke turned midnight black, forcing the fleeing fire companies to slow in their escape. Mike Stoker suddenly couldn't see the road as a suffocating blanket of ebony ash covered them in a thick pall as the wind stilled. He was forced to hit his brakes and the engine's wheels began to bake on the superheated earth and shattered bones of the fire.  
::No, No.. Can't stop. The tires will melt down. But I can't go fast enough either..:: Mike warred with himself silently.  
::The smoke's blinding me.::

A blast of dust and sand filled his windscreen right at that moment. ##Engine 51, I am on your fender as a guide. Follow our lifting wire.## Chopper Nine notified them.

Just ahead, Mike Stoker could see a wedge cable and bright orange basket buoy dragging along the road right in front of his bumper through the inky murk. It was tantilizingly close.

He glued his eyes to it and didn't look away, trusting instinct and the helicopter's pilot to lead them out of the growing fire.

-------------------

Engine 36 screeched to a halt when they lost sight of Squad 51's tail. The bucket man barely hung on when his truck skidded to a halt in the ash and soot. He yelled down to his captain. ##You're all right. Keep going towards twelve o'clock! You're fifty feet from them. Nowhere near colliding. Hurry.. Gage's out from under my water.##

------------------

Ahead of engine 51, the chopper buoy on the ground was eaten up by a wall of flame. Stoker gave out a cry of alarm and warning as he flattened the gas to the boards. "Going in!"

Engine 51 was consumed by fire..

-----------------------------------------------

The incessant boom and rush of 36's watering mist ceased.

Johnny Gage threw the tarp aside inch by analyzing inch as he lifted his masked head cautiously to see why Engine 36 had fallen behind.  
They were gone. All he could see were flames behind him.  
and more black smoke. The sun was practically nonexistent overhead and it dimmed more, ominously, throwing Johnny into a surrealistic world of night and glowing embers.

Johnny's mouth went dry when he looked over the squad's hood towards his station's engine. They were charging, full reds on, through a fire wall taller than the engine. "Oh, d*mn..." he whispered and he rewrapped the tarp back tight around himself and Alex, before he knotted into a ball of protection, sealing off her nose with a grip, just before Roy too, drove high speed, into what felt like pure unadulterated living h*ll.

Superheated air flooded around Johnny and he could hear some of his hair sizzling where a lock of it stuck through a hole in the old tarp. He slapped out the fire started there with his free hand, pressing his air mask as hard as he could over his nose and mouth to keep out the burning atmosphere. He looked down. Alex's involuntary chest muscles rippled under his arm. She was fighting to breathe around her blocked off air passages. ::Not yet. You're gonna fry your lungs big time if I let go. And I will too if I take this mask off right now.::

John subconsciously started counting the seconds Alex was going without air. That number had reached about fifty five when Gage felt the resumption of 36's cannon hose water against them through their tarp. Johnny threw aside the smoking, partially melted wrap and he let the rain of water drench him and Alex both in a desperate attempt to cool off their skins and the scorching metal that was almost searingly hot to the touch, around them. Johnny opened his eyes. They were in blessedly open air and daylight and the horrible unchecked fire was now faltering behind them along the road, wind carried, away from their direction.

Gage coughed and choked, bending over Alex to reassess her status, using his body as an umbrella to keep the pouring water from reaching Alex's ghostly white face as he let go of her nose to let her breathe. Right then, the water cascading around them was shut off and the fireman, manning it, shouted in triumph.

-----------------

"Look out!"  
Roy stopped the squad on a dime when he realized that both the squad's tires had melted in front and that he was riding on their bare rims. The force of his emergency stop threw all three of them into the windshield. "Sorry. We've no tires left.."

"It's ok.." Alex's mother and Chet both gasped.

Chet, the girl's mother, and Roy all exclaimed in puzzlement,  
when the dust cleared and they saw Chopper Nine circling in the air just up ahead, but then they saw it hovering above the road. "Why are they landing?" Kelly asked.

"I don't know.. Let's go find out." Roy said without looking at either one of them, and his voice began rising in alarm.. "Ma'am wait here. Kelly I think you'd better come with me.."

"Right.." Kelly said also, without taking his eyes off where the exiting pilot was just starting to urgently point. The two of them slid out of their seats shedding air bottles and opened the squad doors, getting out in confusion. As they watched,  
the chopper pilot finally gave up on communicating something to them and he started instead, a sudden, frantic beelining run to his left.

Roy finally saw Engine 51 in the thick underbrush slightly off the road. He saw her cab was impacted right up against the hillside and that all of her tires were melted off and shredded.  
The top row of the hose bed was still subtly smouldering.

"Ohmyg*d! Cap! Stoker!?! Marco?" Roy lifted his radio to his lips as Chet and he bailed the squad's cab and together,  
they ran towards the horrific sight. "Squad 51 to Engine 36. E51's off the road! Notify L.A and all our responding units!"

He dropped the HT, pushing Kelly on ahead of him urgently. "Chet go check em out! I'll be right there! I'm going back for Johnny and the girl.." he whispered.

Kelly ran towards the engine like a shot with a door pry he had snatched from the squad's side compartment.

-  
"Johnny!?" DeSoto cried out, hurtling himself up onto the back roof of the squad. "You all right?"

He saw Gage ventilating Alex on the demand valve to ease some blistering cyanosis. "We're ok. She didn't take in any superheated air. But her cardiac rhythm's-"

"Johnny. Listen to me.."  
The tone in Roy's voice shut Johnny up immediately.  
"Stoker crashed. I'm going over there! Stay with her!" he shouted, leaping back down again.

"What?!" Gage dropped the demand valve and climbed up on his knees to peer over the squad's chrome top bars and cab's roof. He immediately cursed himself for his reaction and got right back on Alex, snatching up the ventilator again to resume her 02. He snatched up his HT. "Cap! Stoker?! Marco? This is Squad 51. Respond!"

Another body climbed up the back of the squad, looming into view. A singed white crested helmet.

"Cap?" Johnny queried.

But it wasn't him. It was the silvered haired Carter. "Gage!" Steven shouted at him. "We're on it. How are you and the girl?"

"Whaa? uh, we're fine. What the h*ll happened to them?"

"Same as you. Blown tires..Only it looks like Stoker couldn't stop in time. Stay with your victims!"  
36's cap ordered. "I don't know details yet!"

"Cap....I--"

"Just do it.. I'll let you know about them as soon as I do..!"  
Carter said, jumping down to the ground. He literally flew to where Johnny could just barely hear Chet Kelly shouting. Gage couldn't make out any words.

Johnny felt a weight impact the squad's roof. He whirled around on his knees to see 36's bucket man lightly land the bucket on top of the squad's other roof strut. The man climbed off of it and leaned over just in time to help a hysterical Alex's mom up onto the roof with an assisting hand from where she was reaching up to him.

"Alex! Honey? Are you ok?" she sobbed.

Johnny could see the little girl's mother had a fresh cut over one cheek that was inexplicable, but it didn't immediately register to Johnny's stunned mind. But he felt himself answer her. "She's all right. The tarp protected us.." He turned to the fireman with him. "Atkins, Alex is breathing, but her rate's a little fast. Only ventilate her if she tires. I had to keep her from pulling in any heat for a minute and she's still recovering from that."

"Right." 36's fireman knelt by the silent child and took over Johnny's place on Alex's oxygen.

Alex's mom began to sob. "Alex? How is she?  
And where are the other firemen? I- I thought they were going to get us down from here so we could meet up with that ambulance you said was coming.."

That stopped both Johnny and Atkins in a moment.

Atkin's silently mouthed, "She's forgotten about what's just happened?" about Engine 51 to Johnny concerning her mental status.

Johnny's mouth just gaped like a fish twice before he felt himself click into automatic paramedic mode. He tried to glance over the squad's roof towards where Roy, Kelly and Captain Carter had disappeared as the two of them sat her down on top of the cab. "They've uh,.. they've got something to catch up on." he told her distractedly. "Just uh, relax a bit and let me take a look at that cut of yours, ok? Do you remember where you are? What's your name?"

"Andrea.."

"Do you know what day this is?"

"" the mother sighed, holding her head. "I'm sorry.  
What did you ask me?"

Right then, Alex began to stir and cough and Atkins lifted away the 02 to see the child opening her eyes.

Mum? Are you there?

Alex's mother didn't seem to hear her.

Mum? the girl repeated, growing scared when her mother didn't reply back to her. Whats happening?  
Why do my clothes stink?

Simultaneously, Engine 36, Squad 51 and Engine 51's radioes all started issuing Sam's voice and tones soon followed a frantic report that Captain Carter was giving out to L.A. Headquarters. On what it was, Johnny didn't know. None of what was said had gotten through his shell shock.

Gage swallowed back his own thudding worry for his crewmates as he and Atkins efficiently dealt with the new medical situations in both mother and daughter.

As Alex's and Andrea's pulse rates began to calm with his reassurances, Johnny's began to rise in stress and alarm.  
::Are they ok over there? Roy why aren't you HT hailing me:  
Gage's mind screamed out.

"I can see him." Alex said." No!! " The little girl screamed through her simple O2 mask.

Johnny looked down. "Easy. Easy.." he told her.  
"What's wrong honey? Y-you can see who?"

Atkins and Gage didn't know what she was talking about.  
The little girl's eyes had been bandaged shut for burns they had found on her eyelids.

"The tall dark haired man in the white and the black hat." she replied, sudden fear filling her voice with a ring of truth that chilled them both to the bone.

::Captain Stanley?:: Gage wondered. ::How can she know what he looks like? She's been unconscious this whole time:  
"Sweety. What--"

"No! Kelly, not there.. Somebody! Somebody! Get to him fast. He doesn't want to die!" the little girl wailed.

----------------------------------

Photo : A water chopper buzzing low just in front of a speeding engine 51.

Photo : Captain Carter of 36's and Captain Stanley by a burn out.

Photo : A raging brush fire on a hilltop.

*  
From :"patti keiper" Subject : The Little Voice.. Date : Fri, 11 Apr 2003 16:21:26 +0000

Gage rose to his feet, moving to stand directly on top of the squad's cab. He eyed the brush until he located where he heard commotion from the chopper pilot, Roy, Captain Carter and Chet. He made up an excuse to issue a radio transmission. "Squad 51 to HT 51.." he impatiently called out, knowing that by procedure, Roy had to answer anything directed at him.

##HT 51.## came his partner's reply.

Johnny filled him in. "Roy, need ya back here.  
Our adult female patient's showing a Glasgow percentage drop with a new orthostatic BP shift."  
Gage practically shouted read-between-the-lines in his tone as he gave his update. ::What's going on over there, Roy?..Why the silent line?:: he punctuated fiercely in his thoughts. "I'd really like a second opinion on the mother's mental status for Rampart's next report if you're able."

He jumped back down to the squad's bottle store niche. Gage studied Andrea's dozing face once again, keeping a hand on her right radial pulse. He was still considering the odd statements the little girl had screamed just a short time ago. As the minutes stretched by with no more frantic activity through L.A, he began to feel sheepish for becoming alarmed by them.

But some inner sense of nervousness remained. Johnny jumped when he felt a tap on the shoulder. "Ahhh!!" he said, startling. He spun about in place, stumbling over his air bottle that he had abandoned at Atkins' feet and came face to face, with Roy.

"So how ARE they over there?" Gage demanded of him sharply when his fright had passed.  
"Nothing like a little radio silence to torment all of us over here."

Roy only smiled. "Stoker's got a bruised nose.  
And Marco will need to sit on an icepack donut for a while.. Other than that.." and he shrugged.

Johnny couldn't believe it. "What! That's it?"

"Yep. No one was terribly hurt, pally. Mike just took the rig into that sandy embankment to stop her from running away once he felt the tires blow. You know, sort of like how semi truck trailers sometimes use those cedar piles on ramps for brake failures up in the mountains.." DeSoto reasoned. He knelt and took another blood pressure on a groggy Andrea,  
whom Johnny had arranged supine along the other flat side of the squad's top. Her O2 mask was back in place and her feet were raised up onto a resting sideways air bottle.. "Hi there...uh.. " DeSoto asked the mother.

"Andrea.." Johnny prompted instantly.

"Andrea.." Roy parroted. "How are you feeling?"

Andrea didn't open her eyes until Roy gently set a hand onto her arm. He repeated his question.

"Ummm, kinda funny..." she remarked.

"She's not the only one.. " Johnny muttered under his breath about how he felt about Alex's bizarre ramblings. He decided to chalk them off as hypoxia residue and turned up the percentage of O2 on child's clear oxygen mask. Gage then bent low to treat and dress the spidery lightning burns on Alex's shoulder.

Roy checked the mother's IV and O2 flow. "Ok.. My partner tells me you are a little fuzzy on recent details. Did you feel this funny way before, or after we escaped the wildfire?"

Andrea's eyes wandered from Roy's face and she fell to watching the D5W IV dripping into her arm that Dr. Brackett had ordered.  
"What fire?" she said. "Are there more people hurt besides me?"

DeSoto's smile fell away and he drew out his penlight to examine her eyes. For the time being,  
he didn't answer Andrea's questions nor inform her that Alex was nearby to spare the woman unnecessary stress. Her pupils were fairly equal,  
only red and irritated from the smoke she had been exposed to. He felt along her neck for telltale signs of stiffening or tenderness. She didn't react adversely to his probing. Nor did Roy find anything but ash when he checked out her head once more for signs of injury. "Still negative here." he said to Johnny.

"Yep.. So, what do you think?" Gage agreed.

It was only a few seconds before Andrea faded enough to want to close her eyes again. Roy watched her breathing rate. "Don't know yet. The BP's 88 systolic and her resp rate IS shallowing. Just like what you've got written down here." he said. Then he rubbed his chin, thinking about what else he could check for. Then he had an idea. "Johnny, did you take a BP on her other arm for comparison?"

Gage looked up from where he was wrapping the child warmly into a dry blanket. Johnny's slight look of dismay said it all. "Oops." he mouthed silently. Then out loud he said. "I was kinda distracted by all the excitement with the engine, Roy." he said.

Atkins was still doing his part in keeping the little girl awake and oriented by giving her his helmet to feel while she waited for her ambulance to arrive."I think we all were."

Roy turned to get his baseline BP. He nodded as he got the second reading. "It's different, Johnny. 110 over 84." and he slipped into a closer neural exam on Andrea that included a babinski's check and a limb movement equality exam. Her left side presented as weaker despite Alex volunteering that her mother was left handed. Roy noticed that she didn't seem able to grip his fingers with any great strength on that side nor push down with her left foot normally. His mind started churning possibilities. ::Did she get this way from hitting the squad's dash when I stopped?:: he wondered. Then he shook his head immediately dismissing that angle.. ::That facial cut's sitting on the LEFT side and it's minor. It can't possibly be the cause of her deficit now. These mis-reactions are too global and, well.. old. There's some subtle atrophy in her muscles on the effected side. Wait a minute. Maybe her symptoms are tied to a pre-existing condition that the fire exacerbated. That would explain why we didn't find anything grossly wrong with her until now.::

Roy checked the woman's pockets for ID. He found a wallet in her pants and he leafed through its credit card section. ::Bingo.:: The third card he turned over was one outlining a handwritten course of treatment for brain cancer. It had her name on it giving directions to a medical clinic with a familiar date marked down. "Found it." he said to Johnny. "She's got a history of cancer. A tumor on the brain." he whispered, showing Johnny the card. "This is an appointment reminder about a chemo treatment series, scheduled to start today.." he said softly.

Johnny looked up in sympathy. "No wonder she was up here in the hills. I know I wouldn't want to face that kind of thing on such a beautiful summer day. Makes perfect sense . Most likely, they were going on a picnic or something just to forget about things for a while when the storm came and caused their accident."

Roy picked up the phone receiver and updated Dr. Brackett on what they had discovered. Kel gave them instructions on how to make the mother more comfortable and he asked for the ambulance ETA. "Rampart, L.A. reports its ETA as seven minutes."

##10-4, 51.# Kel replied.

DeSoto and Gage both looked up as arriving fire crews rushed on past their scene giving encouraging blasts from their air horns as they sped by to deal with the expanding canyon fire. Johnny grinned when he saw the company that was stopping for their crashed engine call. It happened to be Stone's.

Charlie and Gil leaped out of their rescue squad to assist 51's. Gil gave a low whistle at the sorry condition of the squad as he and his partner jogged up with their gear and replacement 02. "You fellas medium rare or well done?" he quipped.

"Charred.." Gage said. "These two are stable. Histories and treatments are on the notepad." he said giving it to him from his pocket. "You relieving us?"

"Yeah." Charlie said. "Go rest up. We'll get them down from there for ya after we switch over to our equipment and we'll bring em in for ya since your wheels are gone."  
And he laughed at his own joke.

He broke it off when Roy and Johnny didn't smile.  
He cleared his throat self consciously before changing the subject. "Are you ok, Johnny? You look kinda peaked."

"Took some heat and smoke. Nothing major. Somebody had to ride shotgun up top. We had two too many. Oh, and watch the girl. I had to block off her air for the worst of the trip out for about a minute total."

"Gotcha." and the two medics efficiently took over for Johnny and Roy's scene.

Captain Stone wandered over to them from his rig.  
His reaction was pretty much like Gil's about the melted tires on the Ward and Dodge, including the sympathetic whistle and unbelieving head shake. "Everyone still in one piece?"

DeSoto crossed his arms over themselves.  
"For the most part. Bumps and bruises on the engine crew." Roy grinned. "Cap's coordinating with Carter on figuring out the best way for the tow bed to reach over there. If you're looking for him, he said he would be hanging by Engine 36 trying to figure out why their tires didn't melt like ours did."

Gage's face fell into alertness. "Roy. Wait a minute Wait a minute.. You said Cap left the engine to come back over here?"

"Yeah, he left there about a minute before I did." DeSoto grinned, smacking some soot off his pants cuff.

Gage's face levelled into a quiet seriousness that sobered Roy. "Well I didn't see him. I only saw you when you scared the snot outta me tapping my shoulder like that."

"That's odd." Roy said. "I-I wonder where he could have gone?"

"He's probably hiding in the bushes somewhere, embarrassed to come out here to see me about the reason why he decided he had to melt both his vehicles down like waxworks." Ben joked. "He knows I'll tease him about the paperwork."

All three men chuckled.

Captain Stone lifted his HT. "Engine 8 to Engine 51.  
Hank, my medics are here and have relieved yours. What's your 10-20?"

The light laughter from them died away when nothing but static returned.

Something deep inside gripped Johnny and he fidgetted.  
His odd nervousness returned and he danced on his feet,  
craning a neck over to where he could see Chet milling about next to the engine.

Some of Stone's men were already fully on the scene. They were using 51's own water to cool her steaming tire rims and undercarriage with one of her hoses that hadn't been singed during their frantic breakout.

"Hang tight. I'm gonna go check on something.." he told Stone and DeSoto. And he jogged across the field over to where Kelly was putting a bandaid on the bridge of Stoker's bruised nose.

Kelly looked up and so did Mike. "Hiya Johnny. Sorry for not answering your hail. Cap said he would take care of it."

"Yeah, well guys, answer me this. Where is Cap?"  
Gage said hurriedly. "He never replied me."

"Isn't he with you fellas by the road?"

"I thought he was with you.." Gage said with a frustrated pointing gesture.

Stoker shook his head, feeling up the patch job Kelly did on his tender nose when he was through.  
"Hey, Chet, I think you put this on crooked." he complained, peeking in the engine's soot streaked door side mirror.

Kelly smirked at Mike. "You look beautiful, Stoker."  
*Smooch* he kidded.

Stoker made a face. "Think I'll go get someone else to fix this then. I know, I'll go get one of Stone's medics to give me an honest opinion on the efficacy of your bandaging job. Roy and Johnny just may have to re-train you on how to do it right, buddy."

"And I think you scarred me for life, pal, by crashing into that hillside. Just look at my elbow, Stoker! I freaked pretty bad running over here to get to ya. I don't see you patching ME up..!" he bellowed. "Some gratitude, man.. Geesh.." Kelly said at Mike's departing back as he flicked some dirt out of his very minor abrasion with a few fingernails. "Hey, no sweat about Cap, Johnny. Didya try hailing him on th-"

"Yes, Chet.." Johnny cut him off. "I just told you that.  
And for that matter, Stone just tried to reach him again,  
too."

Marco looked up from where he was checking the underside of the Ward for signs of oil or gas leaks.  
He was moving slowly to favor his bruised behind.  
No one laughed at his stiffness. "I saw him." Lopez piped up. " He said he was gonna look over the front end under all that brush to see whether or not Stoker crumpled any chrome." he chuckled.  
"We got a bet riding on it."

"Well how long ago was that?"

"Oh, about five, six minutes ago." Lopez said. "Once he knew we were all fine, he grabbed his helmet and headed that way." Marco indicated.

All three men turned to peer into the thick rhododendrons covering Engine's 51 steaming front section. "Cap?!" Gage called out. "Got a minute?!"

Hank didn't holler back.

Puzzled, the firemen started walking towards the hillside. Johnny stopped in his tracks when he saw Cap's HT still laying across the seat of the engine through its open driver's door. His work gloves were still there, folded neatly on top of the transmission live radio.

Kelly noticed that too, "That's weird. He didn't take his gloves with him. Kinda odd, cause there's still a lot of superheated metal up there."

Johnny hefted them up and he shoved the gloves into his pants belt. Gage nervously shifted the helmet on his head. "Guys, come on. Let's try to find him."

"What's the big deal Gage?" Kelly asked. "Maybe he changed his mind about checking up on you and Roy and went to 36's engine for a bit first to check on Carter."

Johnny lifted his HT. "Squad 51 to Engine 36."

##Go ahead, 51.## Carter's calm gravelly voice replied.

"Cap, ..ah" Gage said. "Is our captain with ya ? We can't seem to pin down his current location."

##Negative. Stone here with me says he still can't raise Hank either.##

"That tears it.." Johnny said. A thick dread filling his stomach. He put on Hank's gloves and moved to the equipment compartment of the engine for a safety belt and a coiled figure eight of rock rope.

The other guys watched him in surprise. Chet spoke up. "Gage, why are you getting so worked up here?  
Cap's around. He always is. He's probably just someplace nearby figuring out a way to get the tow guys back in here to-"

That annoyed Johnny. "Have you ever known Cap to wander a scene without his HT?" he insisted sharply.

"Well,... no..not exactly.." Kelly stammered.

"It's never, Chet. Now come on and help me into this.." he said. "Then get yourself geared up too. I'm calling for a scene search."

"Johnny, don't you think you're over reac--"

Gage hit his HT call out. "Engine 51 to HT 51 and all Engines. Captain Stanley may be missing from the scene. His last known position was with Engine 51. We're beginning a search from our 10-20. We need immediate assistance."

##10-4...## came multiple replies. Stone, Roy Atkins and Carter soon came running from the road to rendevous with Gage and the others.

Stone was pacing along side Gage when they began to cut through the underbrush, fighting their way to the front side of the engine and into the narrow arroyo its hood was jammed up against. Once there, he found a hand saw on the ground where Cap had apparently been doing the same thing. "Here, Ben. "Johnny shouted. "Looks like he came this way.." Captain Stone joined Gage and squeezed into the small space that was blocking their way to the open tangle of brushy slope angling in front of the engine.

Johnny had just pushed through and was standing up when his feet tottered on the edge of a yawning hole in the grass. He pinwheeled in panic with a shout until Ben pulled him back away from the weakened spot that had creaked woodenly beneath his weight.

The others behind them held up when Ben gestured for them to freeze. "Hold it! Hold it! There's a hole here!" he snapped at them.

Ben cautiously inched forward to look where Johnny had almost fallen and his face furrowed. "Looks like an old abandoned well. Careful, everyone. The shaft's lip may be bigger than it appears because of all this old overgrowth."

They all dropped to their stomachs and crawled forward until they could peer down into its darkness around the rotten boards they found there. Two of the boards were newly cracked and there was a steaming redness streaked across one of them. Ben reached out a hand to touch some and he brought it to his nose. "It's blood."

"Cap?!!" Kelly called out urgently.

Johnny drew out the flashlight he had snatched along with his gear and aimed it down into the hole. He could just hear the sounds of gurgling water far below and his light's feeble beam caught something shiny hanging on a root. It was Cap's helmet. "I was afraid of something like this." Gage said quietly worried. "Didn't feel right about him."

Stone got on the radio. "Engine 8 to L.A. and all units at 51's incident. We've a man down a well beneath a fire engine. Respond a cave specialist team and a heavy excavation equipment detail to our crash scene."

##10-4, Engine 8. Your time out. 16:12.##

Tones began to peel out eerily over their talkies as Gage and Kelly continued to shout down the crumbling shaft. "Cap! Can you hear me?" Gage yelled.

Kelly's face was tight with tension and he swallowed nervously as the echo of their voices died away and bounced around inside the dripping shaft without a responding reply. He looked up at Ben, Roy, Carter, Johnny, Atkins and Stone. "Sounds like there's an awfully strong current at the bottom. I think the lower half of the shaft's flooded really deep."

"Could be a well broken through into a mine shaft."  
Carter suggested. "This whole park's riddled with old abandoned digs. I personally know of five underground passages which carry water towards the flooded quarry just over that hill. This clearing may be a place where slideouts during fire years occur regularly. See where rain has weakened the hillside here? A boulder may have broken through, creating this fissure into the well, when your engine came barreling against it, out of control."

Atkins was only just slipping into repelling gear.  
He marvelled at Gage already being so well equipped for a vertical descent. "Did you listen to the little voice we're both thinking of to figure this out?"

"Who knows for sure, man. I just want to get down there, Atkins. Now."

Kelly and the others rapidly placed a ladder over the hole that they had grabbed from the engine.

Roy laid a calming hand on Johnny's back.  
"Yeah, well we'll be down there quick enough.  
Stone's tying off our ropes to the engine's front wench as we speak."

Gage's heart sank into an icy chill when his flashlight kept finding more and more places along the shaft's jagged walls where bloody smears marked the staining that Cap's body had left behind as it tumbled.

He still could see nothing of Hank.

Johnny's mouth went dry as he peered into the pitch black of the wet rotten hole. "Tie them off faster, guys! He can't wait. I'm seeing a lot of blood down there." he snapped at the men grunting and squeezing through the undergrowth around the hole to reach the engine's grill and bumper. And the power wench. "Be ok, Cap. Just be ok.."

----------------------------------

Photo : Chet in turnout gear, worried.

Photo : Marco, kneeling and looking down.

Photo : Johnny and Captain Stone working while looking down.

Photo: Roy on a ladder over a cave in with Johnny looking on.

Photo: A broken through mining well and boards in the ground.

Photo : Cap's helmet, bloodied.

*  
From : "Cory Anda" Subject : The Inner Life Date : Sat, 12 Apr 2003 02:16:58 +0000 Hank Stanley groaned as he awakened to an eerie greenish darkness. He was upright, hanging on a wall by the back of his collar on a splinter of wood and his helmet was gone. "Whaa?" he said out loud. "What?" he said again as he opened his eyes to a feeble glow coming from below him. There was a roaring in his ears. ::Did I hit my head?:: he wondered and he took in a couple of deep breaths. ::Maybe not,  
cause I don't feel any pain. ::Then Hank realized what the noise was. ::My legs. That's why they're cold. They're dangling in this rushing water up to my thighs .  
Am I in some kind of riverbed?:: Then he realized that wasn't the case. Peering about, he realized that he was in an old mining chamber at a junction of a vertical shaft where it met the ceiling of another flooded horizontal passage. Just ahead of him, he could see an ominous gurgling whirlpool rotating at the end of the dead end passage about thirty feet downstream.

He tried to shift his head but a warning creak of sagging nails on the shattered wood holding his jacket, halted him. They dropped him a couple of inches in his precarious place. :"Ahh!." And Hank froze, trying to still the motion of his legs dragging in the fast flow beneath him. ::Don't want to fall in. That water sounds deep and I can't tell where all that water's going for sure...::

He spent another minute or so flexing his limbs slowly and Hank decided that he was fairly intact, all things considering. Until he glanced down at his right hand and realized that it was red with actively streaming blood. ::Oh.  
I got an artery..:: he realized, licking his dry lips.::Gotta s- stop that..:: Already, his head was full of fuzz and a nauseating thirst was thickening his tongue. Moaning, Cap reached into his pocket and found the nasal cannula that he had shoved there from the little girl's mother earlier as they loaded her daughter up onto the squad for their desperate escape through the fire. He rigged a half hitch and looped it tight around his upper arm over his coat on his bleeding side and did it again before he tightened it with an adjustable knot with his teeth and other hand. He pulled until he could feel the thudding pulse beating in his lacerated arm, only quitting when he felt his fingers growing tingly and numb. Gasping, he let go of his tourniquet and he drifted in a sea of dizziness.

A few minutes later, he looked down and saw that the fast trickle of blood was now reduced to a slow rain of drops that fell into the rapid flow of water beneath him. ::That did .. Hope it doesn't come loose on me. This plastic doesn't make very good rope.:: He looked around and up above him. Very far away, he could see a patch of daylight over his head and he could vaguely hear eerie echoes of..::Those are L.A. dispatchs! I'm hearing Sam over an HT!::

"Hey!! " he shouted and immediately winced when that effort shot pain through his circulation stopped arm.  
"Agh...hh." he moaned and his consciousness began to drift as nausea rose up to sicken him. Hank barely kept his stomach by reaching down and splashing some of the water rushing by onto his face with his good arm.

Then he began to regret his actions when a mild shivering set in. ::I'm going into shock. ..I....probably lost a fair bit of my total volume here.:: he thought. Taking a gamble, Hank grabbed a chrome polishing rag he had taken with him to the front of the engine on his trip to seal the bet, from his other pocket. He held it in the water swirling about him until it was fully wet. Gasping and shaking, he wrung it out into his mouth and swallowed the rank liquid slowly. ::Tastes awful. But I gotta....gotta get my fluid level up or I'll pass out..::

Hank drank until his sharpening nausea stopped him. A couple of times, Cap almost lost what he had taken in and it was only a sheer effort of will that saved him from vomitting it all out again. Hank was rewarded a minute later with a clearer head and soon, the chamber he was trapped in stopped spinning around and around in his vision.

"CAP ?! ..CAp ?!......Cap ?!...........cap... ?!" came a bouncing echo from above. It was Chet's voice,  
mingled with Johnny's.

But Cap's head began to sag as his BP dropped from his internal chilling and he couldn't respond. He slipped into a half state, eyes staring into the noisy whirlpool filled with green underwater light just ahead. He began to drift and dream..

-  
Captain McConike walked the line in front of his new firemen cadets and stopped in front of one very very tall, gawky young French looking man, who towered a head over him. He dipped his head to read the man's name tag.. "Henry...Stanley.." he read myopically.

"Hank.. uh, Hank. S-sir.. Only my mother calls me Henry. And uh,...my pastor." Hank immediately bit his lip nervously for talking out of turn in the inspection line. He had heard so much about McConike's reputation on being merciless to any probies assigned to his station who dared break protocol on anything. He froze at attention when his new captain gave him a once over glance from his hours long polished shoes to his starched white dress hat. "Hmm... " the man regarded Hank thoughtfully. Hank could just feel the other probies twitching in sympathy for him as he fell under the gun.

Hank felt his upper lip start to bead with sweat.

McConike said gruffly. "Uniform's fair Mr. Stanley. You only missed some polish on that button."

"Which button where?" Hank said looking down.

McConike immediately swept up his index finger and caught Hank by the nose, making him lift his head in a Three Stooges move. He began to laugh uproariously and so did Hank's fellow newbies. The humor had just the opposite effect on Hank, who's face flushed nine shades redder than the engine he was standing in front of.

McConike glared at the cadets to shut them up and to spare Hank the humility. But his dogged I'm the superior and you're not grin stayed firmly in place as he thoroughly drank in Hank's discomforture. "Knew that would get ya,  
Henry. I never miss my mark when I pull that one." and he laughed loud, alone and long. The need to wipe away his tears ended McConike's enjoyment and he said one last parting shot before moving on to inspect the next cadet to Hank's left. "Never liked my real name either,Henry.  
So just call me Cap."

------------------------------------------------

Hank started to mumble in his half state.  
"Hank, call me Hank! D*mn him..No wonder I set his hat on fire. He never let up the whole time with those stupid slapstick jokes of his for as long as I was his newest man at the station. It wasn't until I became a captain myself that he finally started calling me Hank like he should have.."  
he chuckled weakly.

"CAP?!....CAp?!........Cap?!...........cap?!.... ..We're coming DOWN..DOWn.......DOwn.......Down..........down..So HANG...HANg--HAng...Hang....hang..in there..rrrrr..e.  
there rrrr..e...rre...just a little bit longer..rrrr..rrr...rr....r" another voice's ghostly echo floated over the loud rushing waters ringing in Cap's ears.

::Roy?:: Cap's dulled mind ventured. ::Is that you:  
Hank coughed and then just hung limp where he was, too tired to even think anymore.

-------------------------------------------------

Johnny Gage was a bit lower than his partner in the cramped well shaft. "Gimme more slack!" he said looking up the shaft.

Roy, sweating and climbing down on the boards one by one in his harness, spoke. "Johnny have you noticed how much rope we've been using?  
I'm at the one hundred foot coil mark already."  
DeSoto kicked away the extra belt they had for Cap, from around his legs as he eased around a tangle of mining wire..

"I know.." Johnny said, grunting as he tipped his helmeted head down to avoid the water streams from the ground seeps raining down on them in the gloom. He didn't voice the fact that a fall any farther than thirty feet usually ended up in a fatality. "Just keep going.."

Around Gage's belt, hung Cap's bloodied helmet.  
and he kept one superstitious glove on it as they descended even deeper into the murky gloom of the well. He shouted again down the shaft towards their feet but yet again,  
nothing but the bubbling echoes of his own voice floated upwards along with the sounds of the raging water below. Johnny began to breathe harder as unwelcome negative thoughts about Cap's continued sinking survival chances came more and more frequently with every passing moment.

They were still seeing splashes of blood on the walls. Roy became analytical. "All of this is bright red. He must have gotten a cut into an artery.. "

"We hope.." Gage said sarcastically. "Grossly displaced open fractures do this kind of thing too, in a fall.."

"Yeah, well I prefer to be optimistic, Junior."  
Roy sighed. "Because I can't bear to think that Cap might actually have d-" and he broke off his line of thinking.

"I know what you mean. I'm having those kind of doubts myself right now. Come on, let's keep going." Johnny said."Like you said,  
we'll get all our answers soon enough."

Roy shouted back up the shaft.  
"Gimme more slack!"

----------------------------------------------

Hank's breathing was coming with difficulty now and to him, the moist cool air seemed to be growing thinner. He could barely open his eyes and the whirlpool seemed to weave a hypnotic spell over him. "I'm sorry, Chief.  
I won't do it again..I promise.. Please.. Just get me out of here....and....you can call me anything you'd like.."

Hank lifted his numb arm in front of his face by picking up its sleeve with his other hand and he peered at the skin on his palm there. "Man, looks like the mother of all rug burns.. heh. Will take at least a graft or two to patch that.."

::Will take a month or two to pass that Hank.  
Only by becoming a captain will you find some peace about him..What ever possessed you to set the chief's hat on fire?:: his mental psyche injected into his mind. "Emily?" he gasped, imagining his wife's soft alto whispering to him next to his ear. Cap's eyes closed as his deepening hypothermia made him think the stony wall was his cotton quilted bed at home and his hallucinations real aspects of his family.

Cap finally slipped into a shadowy realm and all trace of the chamber exited on the silent black wings of unconsciousness. Hank's breathing slowed to a crawl.

---------------------------------------------

Johnny Gage stopped shouting Cap's name.  
"Wait a minute. Wait a minute.. I see him..!"

"Where?.." Roy asked eagerly, and very tired.

"To my right.. straight down beyond that outcropping. Looks like he's mostly out of the water. More slack!!!" his voice sliced up the shaft..

Finally, Johnny lowered another six feet.  
He strained reaching for the nearest part of Cap to his fingertips. His bloody right hand.

Gage grasped that wrist, feeling for a pulse.  
He didn't find one. "What?" he startled,  
eyes shooting to Cap's face for a confirming off color. But Cap was still pink. Then Johnny noticed the shiny coils tied around that arm. "It's a cannula,  
Roy, acting as a tourniquet.." he sighed in relief.  
"I thought he was dead for a second.." Gage grunted as he angled in a little closer to reach Cap's limp head.  
Johnny had to swing and grope three times before he landed a solid touch on the side of Hank's neck.  
"He's still got a carotid. But its thready. And he's real cold. Here. Gimme the safety belt, Roy. I'll put it around him."

As Gage struggled nearer, his gloves felt Cap's stomach expand ever so slightly as he worked to place the belt around Hank's waist to secure it to their third lifeline."Breathing's shallow. But he's doing it."

Gage couldn't quite reach the fastener on Cap's belt to their free rope and unconsciously, Gage gave a tug, trying to bridge the final inch separating them.

Captain Stanley's snag on his collar suddenly snapped and he started sliding down the slope like a stone towards the creek streaming passageway below.  
"Cap!!" Roy shouted, but he was at the end of his rope and could go no lower.

Johnny made a grab for Cap and only got the loose end of the cannula tubing in his grip. It tore loose, untying from Cap's arm before Hank fell the rest of the way to the bottom. He sank rapidly under the water.

Johnny didn't have time to think. He acted. "I'm going in!" and he cut his short rope from the main one with his holster bowie knife not even hearing Roy's shout not to.

---------------------------------------------------

Johnny Gage was shocked by the utter icyness of the torrent of water. He barely got his head back above its frothy surface before his lungs shuddered into an instinctive involuntary gasp. He wasted no time.  
"Roy.. lower another rope after I get him up!" and Johnny began a powerful stroke down stream towards the dead end wall. Briefly, Cap's back surfaced as his body floated up in the grip of the leading edge of the eddy. Gage grabbed him,  
lifting Hank's pale head above the water before he flopped it back onto his shoulder. "I got you Cap..!" he sputtered as he fought the rapid undertow forming beneath them. His face filled with a sudden horror when Johnny realized the danger.

Roy saw the underglow lit whirlpool surge and it dragged his struggling partner and their ragdoll captain inside a ferocious swirl as it hungrily sucked both of them under.  
The submersed shadows that he could see of their clinging bodies, spun wildly beneath the flow's surface for one terrifying second before they disappeared entirely as the whirlpool suddenly folded noisily onto itself and rippled away into stillness.

Hot tears blinded DeSoto when he realized the implications of what he had just witnessed.

"Johnnyyyyy!!! Caaaappp!!!" Roy screamed and his terror echoed a dozen fold above the underground river.

Roy never remembered pulling on his rope for a hasty ascent.

-------------------------------------------

Photo: Johnny in a tight ground hole.

Photo: Johnny on a repelling rope.

Photo: Roy looking stunned outside.

Photo: A flooded under ground cave whirlpool.

Photo: Cap's helmet, turnout and boots line up along the wall of the station.

*  
From : "Roxy Dee" Subject : Washout Date : Tue, 15 Apr 2003 20:27:20 +0000

Hands reached for Roy the moment everyone around the caved in well could see him.

"Captain Stone?! They fell.." his voice cracked.

"What?!" the station eight captain gasped.

Roy let the crew around him pull him out by the arms. "My partner was about to secure Cap to a lifeline when the debris holding him on the wall gave way. Johnny cut his rope and went after him but they're in trouble. The current had an undertow at the end of what I think is a dead end passage and they both were swept under."

Captain Carter rubbed his chin, thinking. "A dead end passage did you say?"

"Yeah." Roy coughed, catching his wind after the long climb upward. "Is that important?"

"Sure is.." Steven nodded. "When these old mines were open, certain tunnels had sloughs specifically designed for discharging excess rainwater into an aqueduct that feeds into the main quarry just over that rise.." he said, pointing. "If your captain and partner are still alive, that's where they'll end up."

Stone stepped back from the hole as Chet and Marco helped Roy out of his repelling belt and ropes. He thumbed his radio and said, "HT Eight to Engine 8 and Brush 4. We've two men washed away in a subterranean current near our location. Send four men with a pair of stokes and mountain rescue gear to the north side of McGregor Quarry. The place we're looking for them to reappear is anywhere along that shoreline. Over."

##10-4, Engine 8. Slope extrication and stokes to the north escarpment of the quarry. We're moving out now.##

"10-4." Ben sighed.

Roy's face was pale with fright for his crewmates and he found he couldn't think clearly at all. Chet Kelly grasped him on the shoulder and said. "Roy, they're ok man. You heard Captain Carter. That tunnel wash has an outlet that's not very long. You know how Johnny always ends up back on his feet after something like this happens.." he nodded animatedly.

"Yeah? But he doesn't ever do that without injury, Chet. Gonna be harder this time because Cap's got more going on besides just shock and hypothermia. His arm was in a tourniquet when we found him for a very significant laceration and that came free when he fell. On top of the drowning danger, Cap may just bleed to death before Johnny can do anything to stop it." DeSoto said.

Kelly's face sobered, but immediately, he said. "Roy, quit freaking out. You're snowballing. Just go with the other guys running over there. Marco and I will handle the squad gear and we'll meet you in two minutes! I see Stoker already booking for it."

With a heavy heart, Roy took up Chet's advice and jogged after the two fire captains to the edge of the abandoned quarry just beyond Engine 51.

--------------------------------------------

Photo : Roy on the squad radio, helmet on.

Photo: Chet grabbing a ladder from the squad.

Photo : A flooded stone quarry near the ocean.

*  
From: "Ziggy" Date: Tue Apr 15, 2003 6:36 pm Subject: A Brief Return

"Hank."

Station 51's captain stirred slightly, but did not awaken fully.

"Hank." The voice, vaguely familiar, insisted more insistently.

Hank's eyes fluttered, but no other response was forthcoming. *Go 'way! 'm wet, cold and tired. So tired. Just wanna sleep-*

"Henry Adams Stanley! Ten-hut!"

Hank started awake at that. Old habits faded slowly. He raised his head a few inches off the stony ground and blinked as the blurry form kneeling beside him. The form coalesced itself into-"Chief?" Hank knew it wasn't possible, but the figure at his side appeared to be McConnikee. The chief was dressed in his day uniform, including his turnout coat and white helmet.  
"But-you're dead. aren't you?"

McConnikee smiled somewhat sadly. "I'd like to say the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated, but I'm afraid I can't. But I'm not allowing the same to happen to you, Hank. You've got to hang in there. Help's on it's way. Just a short while longer."

Hank blinked. "I--can't. Too--tired."

"You must and you will. The department can't afford to lose another experienced leader. You've got to hold on." The chief's image smiled. "God knows Gail is a strong woman, but I need you to help her get through this."

As McConnikee spoke, Hank felt something being tightened around his bleeding arm. In his half-faded state, he barely paid it any mind.

"Chief, I-I'm sorry f-for-"

"Burning my hat?" McConnikee chuckled. "I admit, I had it coming. Another reason for you to stick around, Hank. You gotta let your men know the reason for that. I forgave you for it a long time ago." The chief looked behind him. "Help's coming now," he stated as he turned to face his rapidly fading captain. "You were one of my best men, Hank. I'm proud to have been your commander."

That said, McConnikee rose. Hank thought he saw him pause beside the unconscious form of another blue-uniformed firefighter near-by. His eyes closed briefly and when he managed to crack them open again, McConnikee's image--ghost?--had disappeared. Again, Hank lapsed back into darkness.

-----------------------------------------------------------

Photo: Cap lying on his back looking up out of uniform.

*  
From : "Patti Keiper"  
Subject : Recovering the Past.  
Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2003 23:30:14 +0000

They had found them. Amazingly, on the only horizontal margin possible, rimming the flooded icy watered quarry. There had never been a faster descent by rope than the one made by Johnny and Cap's rescue team.

---------------

"Got that tourniquet in place, Chet?" Roy asked in a strained voice, crouching to check Johnny's breathing yet again where he lay on his stomach semi prone.  
"Yeah. It's tight. Thought he was awake for a second here. He just mumbled something."

"Just keep that arm elevated with that continued pressure just like you're doing. When that bleeding slows,  
pack it off with even more pads and then try to ease the band loose enough to get that hand to pink up again.  
If that bleeding starts up again with any substantial flow, tell me, and I'll come over there with a hemostat. Guys," Roy addressed the Station Eight firemen ringing above them. "Get him into these mast trousers. Cap's negative for cervical and spinal injuries." DeSoto said.

"It's a miracle he's not in a million pieces." Marco said.

"The walls of that well were very muddy, Marco.  
Lots of soft clay and moss. No doubt it cushioned him on the way down until those tree roots stopped his fall. Only that arm's been cut by something sharp,  
most likely on a loose nail or two. How's his breathing?" Roy asked about Cap, feeling along Johnny's still body for signs of misalignments or skin breaks. Roy was still getting over a scare concerning his partner that had occurred when they all had first located them.

Captain Stone was at Hank's head with one hundred percent O2 delivering abundantly by demand valve. "Fast. Seems like he's panting a little bit here. His rate's around 34 times a minute.  
Pulse is up there, too."

"It's hypovolemic shock. As soon as I finish detailing Johnny, I'll get on the line to Rampart for Cap's IVs. Help him vent if he loses color more than that lip cyanosis." Roy cut the chin strap of Cap's helmet free that was still twisted around Johnny's belt to get it out of the way for a pelvis fracture check.

"Right." Ben nodded. He could see Marco and Stoker scrambling to lay out the anti shock trousers and fit them around Cap's legs and lower abdomen.

As soon as Roy was convinced Johnny was in no danger, intact, and truly C spine injury clear, he waved the team of four Carter had mobilized, to wrap him in a plastic blanket right where he lay. There was still water trickling from his mouth.

Roy breathed a sigh of relief, finally daring to think back to the first terrifying moments he had experienced after his feet had touched stony ground following his rapid repel descent down the face of the quarry cliff to the water's edge.  
Roy fervently began to thank his lucky stars for where he now was, situation wise. ::Gage's laryngospasm released only half a minute ago.:: DeSoto thought.::He's looking a LOT better now. Thank G*d.::

Roy still had both eyes on Gage's chest as he watched Carter place him on a high flow O2 mask. DeSoto was ecstatic that a cricothyrotomy hadn't been needed. Steve's obstructed airway maneuvers initially hadn't had any effect at all during those first few seconds of Roy's nightmarish recollection.

DeSoto had just about reached for the 14 guage angiocatheter kit when Charlie's failed Magill forceps relief attempt confirmed that it was a definitely a laryngospasm causing Johnny's apnea.

Once I.D.'d, the cramp was forced to pass with gentle manipulating. Soon after, the hasty gastric tube placement that water decompressed Johnny's stomach, did much to ease most of Gage's respiratory difficulties. It wasn't long until they were resolved enough for good ventilating. Johnny had begun to gasp right away on his own, soon after Steve had given him a few firm breaths mouth to mouth.  
::He's gonna be uncomfortable if he wakes up with that NG in place, but breathing's better than not breathing at all any day.:: DeSoto grinned.  
Satisfied that Johnny was well seen to, Roy turned his attention back onto Cap. "How's that hemorrhaging over there?" he asked Kelly.

"The band's off. It seems to be easing, though his breathing isn't by a long shot." Chet told him.

"I'll fix that in a minute. What Cap needs is a lot of fluid next until he gets to Rampart for a transfusion. Kelly, looks like you'll get to be his donor once we get there." Roy rubbed his chin, considering his next plan of attack. "Looks like I can start his IVs here, the stokes rigging isn't ready yet." Roy said glancing up at the fast working set of firemen getting a pulley system set to scale the towering quarry cliff walls.

Soon, Roy had his drug treatment go ahead from Brackett on both his patients. Roy soon inflated all the chambers of the mast suit happily,  
but Cap's systolic BP remained in the low 60's.

DeSoto started two large bore NS bolus drips for Cap wide open to elevate him into compensated shock. Roy looked up at a moan from over his shoulder.

Johnny stirred where he lay on his stomach and the red haired station eight paramedic at his head bent over him in a new primary assessment.  
Gil quickly shifted the oxygen mask away and removed the NG tube as Johnny angled his soggy limbs from his recovery position in a shaking tentative experiment of returning consciousness.  
"ooooohhhHH." Gage groaned. Then he froze when he realized that he was on oxygen and that Cap was inches away from him snuggly warm wrapped and fussed over by a very welcome bunch of firefighters.  
"*cough*..Cap? " And he spat out sandy loam from his mouth as he drew the blanket tighter around his chilled body. Gil sucked the rest of the grit away with a portable suction lightly as Gage's water irritated eyes fluttered opened completely.

"Relax, Johnny. He's fine. We got to you both in time. How's your chest?"

"Ooowww.. My whaa? Oh...yeah, that." Analytically, he decided his own lungs were clear of water. "Uh,,," he said fuzzily. "No edema. But my gut's more than sore. Man, feels like someone been squeezing me like a pack of Charmin."

"Welcome to the world of near drowning, Johnny.  
You were a textbook case of cold water laryngospastic syndrome." Gil quipped.

"I'll never crack another joke about pool gulpers ever again. I feel like sh*t."

"Better feeling like sh*t than dirt, Gage. Start smiling.  
Your fool hardy just-being-a-hero stunt paid off so the possibility of your feeling like dirt here's not even an inkling. Man, Gage. We thought you both were goners for sure until Stoker spotted you two in your blue shirts and pants lying on the rocks." Chet commented, placing another dressing pad over the stained one he was leaning his weight on over Cap's cut lower arm.

Roy agreed with Kelly wholeheartedly as he monitored Cap's breathing through a stethoscope. "Nice work on getting Cap and yourself to shore. Must have been hard getting your turncoats off so that they wouldn't drag you under.  
That alone probably made all the difference in the world on your survival."

"Waitdaminute. * cough* I did what?" Gage said, batting Gil's hands away when the medic tried to reposition Johnny's mask back over his face. "Roy. I didn't have time to do all that. Last thing I remember, I was rushing along an underwater passage, watching the walls whiz by in a sea of bubbles with no air in my lungs, clinging for dear life with my legs and arms, to Cap. Whatdiya mean I got him to shore? Geesh. I was blacked out even before I saw any daylight.*cough*" Johnny set his own O2 back onto his face and he laid a muddy arm over his face to block out the painful sunlight streaming into his aching eyes and head. He let Gil fuss over him without protest.

Marco, Stoker, Chet and Roy and the other men,  
fell silent. They clearly remembered seeing Cap and Gage, coat stripped and stretched neatly out, both face down on the beach, as if they had been carefully arranged there.

It wasn't until fifteen minutes into an airlift that Hank Stanley roused and began to shout. Roy and Chet Kelly had to hold him down in his delirium.  
He seemed to be speaking about Chief McConike and a solemn promise to visit his gravestone as soon as he got out of the hospital.

Roy and Chet could only shrug as to why Cap focused on that particular goal.

-------------------------------------------------------

Hank Stanley adjusted his sling around his loose fitting nautical ivory carnigan and he sighed deeply, ...just before he rang the McConike household doorbell.

The white lacy curtain on the other side of the pane of glass shifted briefly, as the slight form of Gail McConike checked to see who had come calling so early in the morning.  
She was still tired from days of crying since the funeral. But Gail instantly changed her outward demeanor when she saw who it was who'd come calling. "Hank.. you've been discharged from the hospital so soon?"

Hank Stanley pulled the bundle of white roses with a gold enveloped sympathy card nestled inside of them, from behind his back. "I...sort of made a pest of myself, Gail. You see.. I.  
had to come here. Sort of knew I....needed to be here, now.. For you and your daughter."

Gail accepted the perfumey blooms, taking comfort in their heady, water coaxed aroma.  
"Thank you, Hank. Won't you come in?"

Cap nodded self consciously and he only sat himself down on the flower patterned couch when she insisted that he do so.  
"So how are you holding up..?" he asked without preamble. "I...sort of feel compelled to ask you that. Stop me if I'm too personal here. I- I--I don't want to overstep my bounds."

Gail's freckled face finally beamed inside a frame of silver white and black curls. "Now that's Melton rubbing off on you again. Right to the core, Hank Adams Stanley. And you know it.  
When you're in this house I expect you to be yourself and yourself only. Is that clear?" she smiled slightly.

"Yes, maam.." Cap said, falling into a moment of remembering the Chief's last words spoken to him that day on the shoreline. He wasn't even sure that it really happened. Days later, as he lay healing in his hospital bed, he decided that how he had come to experience them didn't matter. What was important was realizing the profound effect that the Chief was still having on both their lives. Cap tentatively reached out and took Gail's hand in warm, close friendship. "Hard to break a habit engrained in my very fiber. Melton is still very much in my thoughts. There isn't a day that passes when I don't think of him."

"Join the club.." Gail said gently. "Would you like a drink? Coffee? Tea?"

"No, no thanks. I'm fine. I'm just about ready to stop by the stationhouse and let the guys know how I'm faring. They invited me to breakfast to celebrate my breaking out of Rampart."

Gail laughed gently. "No doubt it's Marco's mom's tamales again.." she guessed.

"How'd you know..?"

"It's Wednesday. Melton always used to bother you men on A shift each month on surprise inspection just so he could have an excuse to eat those wonderful tamales with you."

Cap's eyes smiled and he folded his good hand onto his lap.

"So how are YOU doing? That broken arm hurt much?" Gail McConike asked of Cap's sling, misguessing what it was for.

"I just had some surgery to repair an artery that's all. I didn't break anything. It doesn't hurt much anymore.  
Brackett's a wonderful vascular surgeon. I-I...I am healing just fine. " Cap looked down and his eyes fell on the coffee table to the maroon photo album that lay there of Melton McConike. It was opened, ironically to the days when Cap was a new firefighter under him.

On the second page, there was an unexpected shot from the day Cap first became Captain of Station 51. From the first moments in fact, when he had fired off his first surprise dress inspection on his new crew at 51 just to stretch his newly appointed rank's muscle. It surprised Hank that the photo was even there. He hadn't remembered there even being a photographer present on that day.

But then again, six years of similar inspections and years of runs made it difficult for recalling any great detail of his first day as "Cap". Hank remembered feeling far too nervous to remember much of anything.  
Seeing his own men, younger, and very sharp in their dress uniforms, gave Hank courage to return the question back at Gail. "So, how are you healing, Gail? It can't be easy for you to adjust at all. Again, stop me if I'm being too personal, please.." he insisted.

Gail noticed the picture that Cap's eyes were focused on and she slowly drew it out of the album so Cap could take a better look at it. "Here.." she said, after a slight hesitation. "Then keep it. It's a gift.."

"No, no, no.. I - I couldn't take this. It belonged to the Chief.. I."

"Hank. It's yours now. Melton frequently sent photographers out to the stations where his first old crew each promoted into in order to hand those images back out to them during a special occasion, or other moving moment such as.." and her voice broke off..

Hank finished her thought for her. "...such as during a fireman's funeral.."

Gail smiled slightly. "Only with your station,Hank, he never ever got a chance to. You were too d*mned good at keeping all your men's rears intact.." she joked.  
"Melton loved that about you. One of the only captains to never lose a man."

"Careful, Gail, you might jinx me.."

"Rubbish.. Superstition is for fools..."

"And firehouse captains.." Hank quipped, waiting for Gail to gather herself to answer his question.

"True.." she admitted. Then her eyes grew bright with a sadness that only hinted the depth of her grief that was still very much a part of her existence." I'm taking it one day at a time." she sighed. "Friends make my days bearable. They bring food, flowers.." she laughed,  
indicating the vase that Cap had brought to her.  
"But the nights are the worse. I can...almost.....feel him in bed beside me sometimes. " she confessed.

Cap just nodded. But then he leaned forward,  
taking Gail's hand once more in comfort. "This is going to sound crazy, but I had a chance to ...feel ...him about me, too. I can't explain it, Gail.  
And I'm not even going to try. All that kept running through my mind while I lay there in deep shock on that shoreline, was how much the Chief loved you and how much he wanted you to be all right with his going..."

Gail's eyes filled and she firmly placed her other hand on Hank's and squeezed. "That's a two way street, Hank. You see, a few days before the accident, Melton wanted me to call you about a gift he wanted to bring you in July for the next annual fireman's picnic.."

"Oh?"

"Wait right here.." And Gail swept out of the sunny Victorian parlor into the den Cap could just barely see. She returned with a box that seemed to be stuffed with shredded white tissue paper. Gail took the picture of Cap's first official inspection from his hand and replaced it with her gift.

"What's this?"

Gail's face grinned. "Open it and see.  
This is part two to go along with your debut captain's photo."

Hank swallowed and opened the box.

The white delicate tissue paper fell away to reveal an old fireman's dress hat. It had a charred brown edged hole crowning where its headpiece frame cloth had been burned away and the metal worked captain's rank front emblem was still holding its shape where the stretched cloth used to be.

Captain Stanley gasped when he realized what it was.. "He saved this?"

"Of course he did. It was the first time a junior man ever held him accountable for questionable behavior and Melton always said that it was an extremely valuable lesson he learned that day." her voice adopted a McConike sounding timbre. "Never wound a newbie in an inspection line no matter how tempting a joke might be. Or it'll come back to bite you.." she concluded. "He saved that as a reminder of you. Your revenge taken by burning this had a profound effect on Melton.  
He never tired of watching your career grow or watching you develop the skills and integrity that a true captain of the line only rarely gains.  
He was so proud of you, Hank."

Cap's eyes filled likewise and he gently touched an ashen edge of the hole in McConike's old cap's hat. "I never knew.."

"And I never knew how dedicated you were to him, until the day you had that courier come to my house with his white helmet for the funeral with a letter from both you and Ben.  
I was deeply touched to learn that both of you were adamantly refusing the department's move to promote one of you to the Chief's spot, in his honor.."

"It's the least we could have done. The way they fill a gap's sometimes heartlessly swift."

"Well, that helmet's back in service now.  
I called Ben Stone myself and asked him to accept the post. He's been training for it all this week while you were still in the hospital. I--I hope I made the right decision in my recommendation to the Department heads. I know how much you would miss your men if I had urged you to take it.  
You would have done it in a heartbeat out of loyalty to me and Melton, without regard for your own wants and desires."

"Gail.. That's not true.."

"In a pig's eye, Hank. Look, you're not even meeting ME in the eye so I know you're lying.." she smirked.  
"I've had the time I needed, Hank. It's ok for someone else to carry on the job Melton loved so much. I'm ready to see the Chief's spot pass on to the next man believe me. I wouldn't have sent the helmet back if I hadn't thought so."

"You sure you didn't do that out of some quirky loyalty you might have to all of us captains that Chief McConike has trained?"

"Well, maybe just a little.." Gail admitted at last,  
smoothing down her paisley china blue apron.

Hank smiled, gently putting away the ancient hat back into its box along with the photo Gail had given him. "Then loyalty must be an infection that knows no bounds for we are both afflicted with it most grieviously. And for that matter, so was Melton.  
For it is because of him that we're both now sitting here talking about the future."

"A future that I thought I would never be able to face. Yet, now I am.." Gail said, her face dawning with sudden comprehension.

"I'm very glad to hear that. To a degree that you couldn't even possibly imagine."  
Cap replied softly. He slowly caressed the hat box under his hand, marveling in the soothing feel its surface had on his skin and his soul.

----------------------------------------------------------

The sun was so far set that Mike Stoker had already taken in the station flags. Cap had not moved from his space at the kitchen table.

In front of him was a bolt of white cotton cloth,  
fabric glue and a stretching frame.

Roy, Johnny, Chet, Marco and Mike all watched with fascination as Cap completed his restoration of the famous burned McConike hat. No one was brave enough to ask how Cap had come by it again after so many years. But finally, Chet came out with it.

"So why'd ya do it?"

The room fell silent, even the sounds of four pairs of lungs suddenly stopping their breathing in shock at Kelly's bold bravado.

"Huh?" Hank grunted as he carefully painted gold leafing over the captain's rank crest on the newly restored hat's metal working, distracted. Then the question finally sank in. "Oh,.. uh, well. Let me set this brush down first. Let's see. The reason why.. Hmmmmm."

"Cap.." Gage complained.

"Oh, ok. ok. This is how it was. Well, you know how you and Kelly got into that game one year with the waterbombs in the whole Phantom fiasco?"

"Yeah.." Kelly said, swallowing nervously at finally being on the verge of getting the answer every man in the department wanted to know about Hank Stanley.

"Well, the Chief and I got into it in the same way.. Only we used firecrackers instead of water.."

Roy started to snicker.. "Y-You planted a firecracker in his hat?"

Cap grinned guiltily, blowing softly on his careful painting, so the 24 carat gold guilding would dry with a rich shine. "Yeah, won that oneupmanship AND the running bet that HQ heads had riding on us. Believe me, it was worth every hour I spent cleaning the latrine with a toothbrush."

"So that's why you never give yourself that chore to do. You hate it so much because it reminds you of this burned hat.." Kelly said, putting two and two together.

"Not anymore. In fact, as soon as I get my arm healed and get back on the duty rosters, I'll pull the can detail first day, like it SHOULD rotate through. There'll be no more of my pulling rank around here inside the station. Things are gonna be fair and square from now on."

"Hey hey hey..." John and the guys celebrated.

"Does that mean when I pull a prank on Gage in the future, that you won't be threatening me with a hose tower detail?"

"That standing order penalty doesn't count, Kelly. The tower's outside the station. I said I'd be fair about what goes on in HERE."

"Oh.." said the gang, severely disappointed.

Upon hearing that, Chet, Roy and Johnny fell into age old grimaces of frustration, in three familiar poses of see no, hear no, speak no evil.

Cap never saw their dismay. He was too busy repairing the symbol that used to be a source of pain that was now his ultimate destiny.

-------------------------------------------------

The next day, a tall figure in a dress suit fireman's outfit left his car inside the rural Burbank cemetery whose address a new widow had shared with him. It was approaching sunset.

Cap Stanley walked respectfully to a recently groomed grave and his understanding eyes fell on the name carved there on the rosy marble. He traced the name's lettering with a finger from his good hand and briefly rested on the still sun warmed stone,  
relishing the heat radiating there. "Chief.. I'm sorry I wasn't there when you were laid to rest here that day. But I sure know that you were there for me that afternoon in the quarry. I can never repay the debt I owe you for making me fight to live."

He sighed and smiled and then he said.  
"I hope this makes up for it at least a little bit."

Cap brought out the chief's old cap's hat, now appearing like new, untarnished and crisp. ::It's been restored with the love only two firefighters can share.:: Stanley wondered as he held it close.  
Hank hung it on the flower holder attached to the stone marker and touched it one final time. As an afterthought, Cap left behind another gift for the man still looming so large in his life; his own double bugle dress rank pin of captain.

The dimming sun glinted once on the insignia and it sparkled like the purest gold into his eyes as his fingers set it on the top of McConike's snow white and black dress hat. "Here's to that big alarm call in the sky, Chief. Hope you're there commanding the scene first at every one of them. And if you meet up with any other of the boys who didn't make it, tell them I'm thinking of them, too..... This is Station 51, KMG 365. Over and out."

Hank Stanley began to smile as he made his way back to his car in the newly gathering, tender summer night.

Something deep inside of him that had been coiled tightly for so long,  
unraveled. Hank's relief was so profound,  
that it drew healing tears to his eyes that ran unchecked, down his cheeks.  
Cap's heart, was now finally, at peace.

Hank Stanley drove back to his station to a future that he now knew with absolute certainty as still belonging to him in every sense of the word.

-----------------

Behind, in the darkness, a wrinkle on the hat Cap had repaired, smoothed itself out in the moonlit wind, until it was inspection perfect, as if by an invisible hand from Chief Melton McConike.

As if in agreement, a distant L.A. county siren answering a tones out call, wove through the peacefully sleeping cemetery,  
like a lullaby.

FIN- The Golden Horn Episode Six, Season One April 2003.

Photo: Johnny with drowning Cap in water.

Photo: Roy looking stressed, outside.

Photo: The 51 gang in full dress uniform.

Photo: Johnny getting after Chet in the bay following another water bomb. Gang watches.

Photo: Roy and Johnny and Chet. Hear no evil,  
speak no evil, see no evil poses.

Photo: Cap rushing to the scene in the Ward cab.  
Daytime.

Photo: McConike's dress uniform hat.

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